the man, the myth

i think i've found my doctoral dissertation.


that is, assuming that i eventually decide to pursue that level of education. I do think i'll end up with a D.Min at some point in my life, because i'm interested in doing some deeper work in some applicable issues, but i don't care to go back and learn 4 languages (Greek, Hebrew, Theological German, Spanish)... but who knows...

anyways, if i get the chance to do some serious research and then write a 'book' or sorts, i would like to take the Hero Myth, or monomyth, and the current works by Christian and non-Christian authors regarding masculinity, manliness, promise keeping, etc., and do a thorough comparison and contrast, and then draw some conclusions about the meaning/value of gender and sexuality in scripture, myth, and life as it is lived.

as i've been reading Wild at Heart again, by John Eldredge, i've been even MORE aware of the thorough penetration of the Hero's story... several years ago, i read Wild at Heart. it had some deep meaning and good application for where i was on my journey, but this was the end of undergrad. In between then and now, i've read Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, as well as a few other primary works by Campbell, and i've been immersed in movie and comic-book superhero stories (ask me how often i read graphic novels).

Now that i'm re-visiting Eldredge's work, it's almost shocking how often he appeals to the Hero's story, to the greater myths that are at work in the narrative of masculinity. Unfortunately, he does not explicitly recognize Campbell's work, and he doesn't even explicitly recognize the Hero's journey in other cultures and/or religious contexts - he only mentions great movies that clearly reflect aspects of the Hero's journey (Braveheart, Gladiator, Good Will Hunting, etc.).
What's most ironic to me about this lack of recognition for Campbell is that Eldredge doesn't really rely on Scripture to be his authority, he is relying on mythic consistencies in our individual stories and experiences, psychological and counseling tools, and even some of the terminology coined by Campbell.

i have some practice - i actually wrote my Senior Synthesis paper for Div. School in the manner of the Hero's Journey - i used Campbell's outline to structure my experiences through undergrad and grad school, and in doing so had to do a lot of personal reflection, and had to do a lot of reading of Campbell's work. Thus, i can easily recognize how often Eldredge is appealing to Campbell, or at the very least to the monomyth (a term from a James Joyce novel, made popular by Campbell). For another project in Div. School, i compared the Stages of Faith development (by James Fowler) with the Hero's Journey, which i suppose could also be a doctoral dissertation. Perhaps that one would be more useful on a scholarly level or in a theoretical sense (since the Stages of Faith are theories of faith development), but at this point i'm more drawn to the Wild at Heart/Monomyth comparison because of the immense popularity of the Eldredge works... he continues to write, and much of what he writes draws from the power of myth as much as it does from the truths of scripture.

i think another reason i feel led to write about this stuff is that i've been recognizing an important fact about community - the corrective aspect of relationships. Let's face it, i am not always right, and sometimes not even close, and you are not always right, but as we live in relationship with each other, we have the opportunity to guide each other by offering the other perspective, by sharing the journey. (this is probably another thought i'll develop soon)
Although many people i know have said negative things or held negative attitudes about Eldredge's work, i have yet to find someone who has provided a corrective approach, or even a well-documented response. So, i'll potentially take that on myself and give a corrective in the form of an explicit comparison between Eldredge's work and Joseph Campbell's, and the possible conclusions one might draw from that...