The more than 100-year-old roots of Eldridge’s mega-popular book, Wild at Heart:
Eliot was justifying the inclusion of athletics in college education as a way of making education appealing to boys who would rather be fly-fishing than studying. That same justification was at the root of a nearly contemporaneous movement within British and American Christianity, the movement most commonly known by the name assigned by English novelist Charles Kingsley: “muscular Christianity.”
Rob,
We had an interesting conversation around a table at a young mens’ Tuesday morning Bible study at church a few weeks ago, in which Eldridge the muscular guru of Christian young men came up. Among fifteen or so men, Ferguson gave a nice little speech about the so-called Christian booksellers, emphasizing the fact that they are always looking for some sage who has a particular hobby horse to ride–one that almost never has anything to do with Christ and him crucified.
It was a little bit awkward, though, because one of our dear elders–young at heart and plenty muscular himself, literally–who comes to this young mens’ study because he invests heavily in the lives of young men at our church, had brought Eldridge up and began defending him after the initial criticisms were voiced. Ferguson dealt very gently with him and with the issue, but didn’t hesitate to criticize muscular (and other product-versions of) Christianity as being strangely antithetical to the core of our faith, namely the rending of an esteemed-not body and the pouring out of that body’s blood for our sin.
Apparently the “read GOOD books, not publisher-appointed gurus” lecture was taken to heart, for this same elder (also quite fiscally ‘muscular’, incidentally) just recently bought a great many books by the Reformers, Puritans, and later writers who are self-consciously devoted to the “old paths”. He also bought ME a bunch of these books, bless his soul! I guess whatever criticisms I joined to make of Eldridge and his guru cousins in the industry (I shared the anecdote of the certain brainy and lanky sound technician’s unfortunate but understandable reaction to this muscular movement in our college fellowship) didn’t come across as disrespectful! I have the Holy Ghost to thank, then, both for not letting me “rebuke an elder harshly” and for the big pile of good books that I am embossing with “From the Library of Andrew R. Stager” this afternoon!