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June 29, 2010
Eldredge Denounces Drug Cartel
"Wild At Heart" author renounces the Michoacán-based group's use of his book as a motivational tool.
Christian author John Eldredge has commented on a Mexican drug cartel’s use of his teachings in their indoctrination procedures, the Colorado Springs Gazette reported Friday.
The 50-year-old author of Wild at Heart and other books, known for his emphasis on “masculine Christianity,” was responding to reports that the group La Familia Michoacána, which some say is the most dangerous drug cartel in Mexico, uses his writings to “instruct and motivate their recruits.”
“People have used the Bible to justify a lot of evil actions,” Eldredge said. ”It brings me sorrow and anger to know they are doing this, and I renounce their use of my words in this way.”
A CT report late last year mentioned La Familia’s use of Eldredge. The Spanish-language weekly Milenio reported in May 2009 that “during the raids and arrests made in recent months by the military and federal forces in the state, the authorities have found a common denominator that, along with high-powered rifles, grenades and drugs, usually appears: copies of the book Wild at Heart, the most recent Eldredge title published in Spanish.”
“In the heart of every man is a desperate desire for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue," Eldredge writes in Wild at Heart, and the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s report on La Familia references this line when discussing Eldredge.
Leopoldo Cervantes-Ortiz, a Presbyterian pastor and chair of the ecumenical Basilea Center of Research and Support in Mexico City, spoke with CT back in October. He said that La Familia is "an example of how a neo-evangelical mentality permeates some drug trafficking groups today.”
"It is very striking that a work of this type is influencing negatively,” Cervantes-Ortiz said of Wild at Heart, “considering that its original purpose is to train men with a new way to live masculinity."
La Familia is known for emphasizing spirituality in its members. According to the Guardian, “advancement within the organization depends as much on regular attendance at prayer meetings as on target practice.”
The leader of La Familia, Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, is a “pious” man who wrote a booklet which discusses “personal empowerment, Christian living and proper deportment,” McClatchy Newspapers reports.
"If you want to say 'I love you!' to those who surround you and to your friends, say it today," Moreno writes.
They also purport to believe strongly in “divine justice.”
“La Familia doesn’t kill for money, doesn’t kill women, doesn’t kill innocent people. It only kills those who deserve to die,” read a 2006 note accompanying five severed heads thrown into the Sol y Sombra nightclub in Uruapan, Michoacán, according to the FPRI report.
La Familia “purportedly [had] concluded that the five men were involved in the rape and murder of a waitress/prostitute who worked in the bar and had been impregnated by a member of La Familia,” the report relates, adding that the group has claimed to administer such “divine justice” to everyone from rapists to graffiti artists.
John Eldredge seems to doubt that La Familia members are taking his message in context.
“If they'd actually read the book, they would know that submission to Jesus is central to the entire message,” he said. “They seemed to have missed the central point which gives context to everything else.”
(Photo of John Eldredge courtesy Ransomed Heart Ministries.)
Comments
After a friend used this book as justification for leaving his family because he needed to be the "real me for my kids", I read the book. The author may have written with submission to Christ as a presupposition, but it is not overtly expressed in the book itself. One can read the book without a christocentric worldview and get exactly what my former friend and this drug cartel got: an anthropocentric fairy tale. If Christ really is the central character of writing, such misinterpretations would be much more difficult to make.
Posted By: Bekah Mason | June 29, 2010 5:17 PM
Scripture is used throughout the book, and men are desperately needed to step up in the church. The book uses a biblical contex to show that men were created for worship of God. This was one of the first books that pushed myself to quit trying to find my masculinity through things that are not honoring to Christ. Latin America is known for ritualizing certain elements of Christianity to fit their culture. If one reads the book, believer or not, it is clear that Mr. Eldredge's purpose is to bring men to a better relationship with Jesus.
Posted By: Nick | June 30, 2010 2:18 AM
I think that this demonstrates that any book (whether Eldredge's or the Bible) can be taken out of context. Which seems obvious since that is part of the title of this article.
Posted By: Basil | June 30, 2010 9:34 AM
I've read Wild at Heart and although I'm sure this drug group is utilizing it for their purposes, I don't see how teaching, "Blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek, blessed are the peacemakers...blessed are you when you suffer for the sake of the kingdom..."and as Paul says, "I stive to no nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified", can be mistranslated. We serve a crucified God...difficult to translate that into "Every man wants a dragon to slay." Eldredge starts from the very "modern" position of every man (literal man) is an autonomous individual and should determine the course of their destiny by reconnecting with their "real" man-ness.
Posted By: Paul | June 30, 2010 12:45 PM
Recall that people also have used the Bible to support their disasterous decisions. I have read "Wild At Heart" twice, and while I do not agree with everything stated in the book, I also want to note that this book is not about issues of Salvation. It is about specific issues that are important to men and and their identities. There are MANY things in the book that have been the catalyst to setting me free (and continue to do so) from the overly feminized pale of Christianity we see today in so many of our churches.
Posted By: Dan Lilledahl | June 30, 2010 1:16 PM
Any man who has read this book and then corrupts its teaching to justify "I've gotta be me" behavior not only would have done it anyway but was only looking for a flimsy excuse. This book has been a catalyst for positive, Christ-honoring life change for countless men and has spawned men's ministries all over the world. Eldredge's denouncement of the cartel and any other such misuse was in line with the message of the book.
Posted By: Mike Whitesell | June 30, 2010 1:23 PM
I have read all of John Eldredge's books and was never motivated to do anything but pursue a deeper walk with God. This is the 1st book written by a Christian in the "Men's Movement" that has had some common sense in it. I am single and single men, as well as married, need all we can get in feminzied church as a needed alternative.
Posted By: Paul T. Kern | June 30, 2010 3:10 PM
this is unfortunate, but this is the danger in over-masculating Christianity. one could argue that just as the author has been taken out of context in this instance, the author took his own liberties with context when he decided to sell a wild, testosterone-fueled brand of the Christian faith.
Posted By: ryan | July 4, 2010 8:32 PM
Ryan, the book doesn't over-masculate Christianity. If anything, it brings a much needed balance to it. Anyone who has seriously taken a look at the book and/or the video series that accompanies it (Leaders Kit) will see that John has helped men to restore their belief that God has a plan for them and wants to use them in mighty ways. I led 90 men through the Wild at Heart course over 13 weeks. Never have I seen a tool more powerful in helping men to cope with their past and to allow God to change their future and their hearts like this series. Wives were coming up to me, crying and thanking myself and the Pastor for helping them to get their husbands back. They were saying that they wanted their "men to be men". So don't throw out a trash-filled, undeserved and somewhat uneducated comment like that. Do your homework!
Posted By: chuck | July 26, 2010 8:54 PM
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Posted By: Matt | August 5, 2010 11:06 AM
No author is responsible for reforming a wicked mans heart. Only God can do that. Bekah, I'm sorry your friend left his family but he has issues with God. Not John Eldredge.
Also God created us as testosterone fueled men. Let's use it for His glory in humble obedience to the gospel of PEACE!
Posted By: Craig | August 31, 2010 11:05 AM