(I believe, and this is based also on reading scientific literature that “testosterone poisoning” is real even if not automatic. Both can be and often are very seriously distorted by social conditioning and sin and, at least in the case of males, hormones can distort gender-from what is ideal and intended. As I have explained here before, based on my own life experiences and observations, and informed by Scripture, I believe masculinity and femininity are not reducible to physiology or social conditioning alone. I assume what really provokes those questions is my cautious but increasingly insistent opinion that maleness and femaleness, though equal in value and rights, equally sharing God’s image, are different in more ways than biology and contemporary sociology say. But because here I have frequently talked about the growing social neglect of, if not outright prejudice against, males-especially in education and health-people keep asking for my response to Wild at Heart.

So, having no interest in that, I avoided the book. Somehow I formed the opinion that, at least in that book, Eldredge was promoting some kind of Christian form of machismo.

I read reviews of it in some Christian magazines and heard that many women’s advocates, both Christian and non-Christian, both male and female, absolutely hated it. I vaguely remember the controversy over Wild at Heart when it was first published.

Wild at heart quote to son