Review of Unoffendable by Brant Hansen

I loved listening to Brant Hansen on my way to seminary (or Chick-fil-A) when I lived in Louisville. His sense of humor is similar to my own and so I loved to laugh with him. But I also appreciated his understanding of the gospel. He would ask through provoking questions and do so in a loving manner. I didn’t always agree with Brant but I still figured that if I knew him we’d get along wonderfully.

My experience with his new book, Unoffendable, is very similar. I still love his sense of humor—I laughed several times throughout the book. And just as on his Morning Show, Brant made me think. I still don’t agree with everything he said in this book, but at the end of the day it’s been a helpful book. It has caused me to stop and I think even in some places where I don’t agree, Brant might be closer to the truth than I am.

So, let me get those couple feisty points out of the way first and then I’ll tell you why this would be a good book to add to your collection. Brant’s major thesis in this book is that Christians can choose to be “unoffendable” and this is the very thing that we ought to do. In other words—there really isn’t justifiable anger and so we should stop pretending as if there is. He summarizes his book this way:

Choosing to be unoffendable means choosing to be humble. Not only that, the practice teaches humility. Once you’ve decided you can’t control other people; once you’ve reconciled yourself to the fact that the world, and its people, are broken; once you’ve realized your own moral failure before God; once you’ve abandoned the idea that your significance comes from anything other than God, you’re growing in humility, and that’s exactly where Gods wants us all.

I can say “Amen” to every one of these statements. It is only when Brant veers a bit away from this vision that I find myself shaking my head a bit. For instance, in a few places throughout the book Brant seems to be saying that Christians never have a right to be angry. He might very well be correct but I’m just not convinced by the arguments here. They just don’t go far enough nor really do justice to the other side.

What Brant I think is saying is that Christians shouldn’t engage in stupid anger. But isn’t there something to be said for being angry with the things that grieve the heart of God? Is it possible for anger to ever be a good emotion? I believe we have gone so far the other way—being offended by everything and calling silly things justifiable anger—that this book is needed. We could use a pendulum swing in the other direction, but at the end of the day there is likely a side to anger that isn’t considered here.

There are also times in which it feels like the suggestions might fall into the trap that I spoke of here. I see this especially in the fourth chapter when Hansen talks about artists seeing what things could be instead of what they actually are. Here it is suggested that we choose to be unoffended because it “frees us to love people in risky but profound ways”. And the motivation for doing this is because we don’t know what this person might become.

It is argued that God, being an artist, loves us because he sees what we can become. But that doesn’t really seem like the motivation for the gospel. God loves us. Period. He doesn’t love us and save us because He knows he can change us. He changes us because He loves us. This is why I say that at times it seems like what is motivating the call to be unoffendable isn’t so much the gospel but more of the backwards hanging out with sinners that I’ve spoken of previously.

But I actually don’t believe Brant believes what I’ve just accused him of saying. In truth I just think the analogy falls a bit flat in chapter four. And this really is the only other downside to the book. It’s a bit scattered and for a book tackling such an important topic a bit more systematic of an approach might have been helpful.

All in all this book is really good. It caused me to stop and think. Brant has a phenomenal point here and in our culture of outrage we ought to heed what he is saying. There is so much anger in our lives that we are not entitled too.

I really appreciated his chapter on the pressing question of the book, “What About Injustice?” Though, I think a bit more could have been said on this I absolutely loved what he did say. Especially this, “We’re positively in love with ‘taking stands’ that cost us absolutely nothing. We even get to be fashionable in the process”. This is social media. We fall into the trap of thinking that just because we write about something or angrily tweet something that we’ve somehow accomplished something. But what does it really accomplish?

 Get this book. It’s needed in our present landscape. It’s a breath of fresh air. It’s not the last word on the topic but it certainly needs to be chewed on and lived out. You’ll be blessed by reading this book.