Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Preventing Grace

Home
Evangelical
A Review of Glennon Doyle’s Untamed

A Review of Glennon Doyle’s Untamed

Last updated on: July 9, 2020 at 7:36 am by Anne Kennedy

A Review of Glennon Doyle’s Untamed 2020-07-09T07:36:49-04:00 Anne Kennedy

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I’m over at the Christian Research Institute today. Also, check out the podcast I did with Melanie.

**********************************************

“And they picked up stones to stone him,” recounts John in his gospel when Jesus, knowing the full consequence of His claim, declared before all the assembled religious throng in the temple, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I Am.”1 Those ancient, earth shattering words resounded in the ears of His enemies — biblically literate, law-abiding men who understood that He was claiming to be God. Ego eimi, I am, could simply be self-referential — I am hungry, I am tired — but paired with the claim to be an eternal person who was before Abraham, Jesus’ opponents rightly recognized His application of the divine name to Himself. This name was held by them to be so sacred that no ordinary creature should give it voice, instead saying “The Lord” whenever he came to the Tetragrammaton on the page. No wonder the leaders of Israel were incensed and angry to hear the divine name falling unabashedly from the mouth of a mortal man.2

Imagine my surprise, then, to come to the final passage in Glennon Doyle’s latest memoire and read:

What are you, Glennon? Are you happy? Are you sad? Are you Christian? Are you a heretic? Are you a believer? Are you a doubter? Are you young? Are you old? Are you good? Are you bad? Are you dark? Are you light? Are you right? Are you wrong? Are you deep? Are you shallow? Are you brave? Are you weak? Are you shattered? Are you whole? Are you wise? Are you foolish? Are you sick? Are you healed? Are you lost? Are you found? Are you gay? Are you straight? Are you crazy? Are you brilliant? Are you caged? Are you wild? Are you human? Are you alive? Are you sure? I am. I am. I am.3

Here, by themselves, these words may seem no more than a useful self-examination at the conclusion of an exhausting day or some unexpected trial, but if you labor through Untamed, you will see that they are the culmination of a compelling yet idolatrous claim. Doyle says it in a swift rushing river of prose:

When I talk like this, my wife raises her eyebrow and asks, “Aren’t you just talking to yourself down there?” Maybe. If what I’ve found in the deep is just my self — if what I’ve learned is not how to commune with God but how to commune with myself — if who I have learned to trust is not God but myself — and if, for the rest of my life, no matter how lost I get, I know exactly where and how to find myself again — well, then.4

Well then is exactly right. But first, who is Doyle and why should Christians be on a wary lookout for her name and her work?

Who Is Glennon Doyle?

Doyle stepped into the spotlight in 2012, like so many, with a single post on her blog, Momastery, entitled “Don’t Carpe Diem.” In a single witty, incisive missive she wrote what every mother thinks silently to herself as she muscles a full cart of children through Target only to be interrupted by well-meaning grandmotherly types who declare, among other things, “I hope you’re enjoying every moment.” Rather than answering back when it happened one too many times, Doyle distilled her thoughts into a sane, practical vision for parents of little children. You can’t seize the day, she says, that way lies madness.5

Therein arises Doyle’s undeniable appeal. She articulates what is on the tip of everyone’s tongue. She catches the wave of the moment and rides it to its peak. In Carry On, Warrior (Scribner, 2013), she encouraged women to do the hard thing — to go to therapy, to go to rehab, to show up for themselves and for their children. A teenage victim of bulimia and alcohol and drug addiction, she knew of what she was talking. Women anxious to more fully live their own lives snatched her book off the shelf.

Tragically, as Carry On, Warrior hit the market, Doyle’s husband confessed to serial adultery over the whole course of their marriage. Desperate to rescue her own life, and, she admits in Untamed, her own plot line, she winched her disintegrating marriage back together, leading to her second bestseller, Love Warrior (Flatiron Books, 2016), the story of marital reconciliation no matter the cost, of dealing head on with the heartbreak of betrayal. But in the very first week of the launch of Love Warrior, Doyle saw Abby Wambach across a crowded room and fell in love. Doyle went home, broke up with her husband, and a year later she and Wambach were married. Untamed is that story — how she finally let go of all that “society” taught her to value, how she “burnt it all down” and found her true self.

Many Christians have never heard of Doyle, preferring to focus their Christian discipleship close within the spiritual confines of the church rather than the internet. But in a time when Christian identity, like all identity, is increasingly imagined to be up to the individual to craft and shape according to preference and desire, Doyle’s writing is ringing true for those even inside the church. A brief slog around the blogosphere and social media reveals innumerable women of every creed applauding Doyle’s honesty and courage. Indeed, the modern word “Influencer” is not even the half of it.

The Cheetah and the Untaming

Doyle undertakes an at once aesthetic, but at root, didactic task in Untamed. She will teach women to be wild, to discover themselves and trust what they find over any other authority or cultural institution. The final product is a how-to in discovering the divine within, in becoming god. She achieves this end by cutting bits out of the Bible, mashing them together with her own thoughts and experience, and serving up the uncanny antithesis of each untamed morsel. Whether or not Doyle undertook consciously to subvert and reinterpret the Scriptures as perfectly as she does, I do not know. The answer to that question would be fascinating to discover but is not essential for understanding her task — to uphold the concept of faith, to recast it so that it becomes self-knowledge, and finally to elevate that knowledge into the place of god.

She begins with the aggressive image of a cheetah, an animal she observed on a zoo trip with her children. They watched a cheetah, Tabitha, chase a dirty pink bunny tied to a string, which was tied to a jeep. The bunny had already been caught by Tabitha’s “best friend,” a cheerful lab named Minnie. Minnie chased the bunny, then Tabitha chased the bunny, then Doyle realized that she herself had been chasing not just one pink bunny, but all the bunnies offered to her by organized society and religion. “I am a cheetah,” she discovered, leading to further discoveries about what it means to “find the Knowing,” and how to “remember her wild.” Doyle wrote the book hoping the reader would feel the breathless energy of a cheetah, of being a beautiful, powerful creature who has the will and ability to tear asunder all the constricting, “taming” mores that keep women in their place…read the rest here.

books

Just Plain Spiritual

vanity

Previous Post

July 8, 2020

Responding to Jonathan Merritt

Next Post

July 10, 2020 7 Admitted Takes

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category books Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Children in Conversation culture watch Daily Devotions Demotivations with Anne faith alone for the grandparents GAFCON In conversation with children In the News Kitchen Notes Lambeth Learning Notes Life Going On Men are Human Notes from Home Pictures Reading the Bible Saturday Links Sermons Signs of the Apocalypse The Bad Word Association The Prayer of Jonah Travel Notes Uncategorized Witless Wednesdays Work and the Christian

Select a Month June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What Christian group believes in baptism for the dead?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Latter-day Saints Presbyterians Pentecostals Anglicans

Books by This Author Books by Anne Kennedy

See All Titles »