John Eldredge attempts a safari of the heart for men to recover a life of freedom, passion and adventure.(from introduction) He does an amazing job, describing the big three desires buried in the heart of every man; a desparate desire for a battle to fight, an adventure to live and a beauty to live for. (Chapter 1). He says rightly so that most of us men have buried these desires under the mountain of obligations and our own history. We have lost our core desires, but they do not die, they just lie buried. To uncover them is not necessarily a simple task.

I think his book is very good at giving a snapshot of true manhood. It is a diagnosis of the modern man. But i am not so sure about the prescriptive part, the how to fix it. The aspiration of the book is so large, that to read it and put it down and move on to the next thing really will not work.

I am afraid his diagnosis of men in the church is sadly pretty much true. We are responsible, dutiful and bored.

Manhood was not meant to be such. He rightly states we need the company of other men to carry us through on the journey to recover our own hearts.

For me this is definitely the most impactful book i have read this year.

Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul by John Eldredge is a classic must read. I purchased at least one case of these when it was in the budget print format and gave them out for Christmas around 15 years ago.

The NY Post is reporting that many young men are turning to the Eastern Orthodox Church because it's not undergoing what Yuri Bezmenov described (they don't subvert their own churches). Orthodox doesn't officially accept the concept of Jesus' substitutionary atonement and there's a lot of rituals and works righteousness that leads many to suicide. Ecclesiastically the bishops report to the head of the KGB so it becomes a national security threat (protected by our freedom of religion laws). It's certainly strategic to have these churches in the Virginia/ Washington DC area, as weekly confession is required (excellent for unburdening the conscience but it will be shared with the Kremlin).

Jesus never intended little boys to be raised as little girls, or any of the other Marxist nonsense that goes on. The Russian Orthodox Church was granted membership to the WCC in 1961 and what a HUGE coincidence that prayer was removed from schools the very next year! We usually just allow the churches to do whatever and say that's their choice.

We were tolerant when Eastern Mysticism invaded USA (a demonic evangelism movement was embraced as entertainment and exercise and self-actualization whatever that's supposed to mean). Idol pastors rolled out the red carpet for thousands of demons to posses God's House (ever wonder why things go wrong?). Anyway huge wrong turn spiritually but I would say Eldredge was trying to turn around the attack on men and manhood early on, and people should have listened. It's not too late. But the young men have fallen into the trap of this Hegelian Dialectic and their souls are too precious not to sound the alarm.

stay away from this book. i urge you to go online and read reviews of this book from people who have given indepth analysis of the book Book Review Wild At Heart Tim Challies