Winner of the 2002 Gold Medallion Book Award, the Family Christian Bookstores’ 2002 book of the year award, proclaimed by Charles Swindole to be the best, most insightful book he has read in at least five years, having already sold over three million copies, Wild at Heart is surely a must read for Christian men. After all it promises to help men to discover the secrets of their souls. Unfortunately, despite all the hype, Eldredge fails to deliver because his book is an absolute disaster biblically. We are not talking here about a few out of context verses and some unfortunate statements. This book is so profoundly flawed that it makes Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life appear to be a masterpiece in biblical exegesis (which it is not) by comparison. How bad is it? So bad that even Christianity Today wrote a negative review. When Christianity Today, which embraces everything from Robert Schuller to Tony Compolo, and seldom has a pejorative word to say about anything (except of course Fundamentalists) feels compelled to write, “The therapeutic virtues of the book, however, do not outweigh its theological and cultural vices,” you know you got a loser on your hands. If even CT recognizes these “vices” how in the world did Chuck Swindole (former President of Dallas Theological Seminary), along with a few million other Christian men, miss it? I certainly don’t know, but unlike Chuck I would rate this as one of the worst, the sorriest books I have read in the last five years. It is not just a total waste, it is highly dangerous. For a fuller review see our Think on These Things paper in the Spring of 2004.
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