Beautiful Outlaw - Review

Who was Jesus? What type of person was he? Many of us believe what the Bible says about him. We believe that he is God's son, that he performed lots of miracles and was the teacher of a group of men called disciples. The facts about his life are clear. But who was he as a person? Additional layers of Jesus are passed down to us through art, movies and sermons. Jesus was kind and sweet. He was Holy. Jesus had a halo. He only wore white robes. It is clear that many of our ideas about Jesus may not be wholly accurate. In fact, we may not have the slightst idea about the person of Jesus at all. John Eldredge, in his book Beautiful Outlaw, describes the whole person of Jesus. He explores the characteristics of our Lord and Savior from his sense of humor to his ferocity. Eldredge writes in a familiar style full of contemporary and classic images. He relies primarily on the New Testament gospels to discuss the person of Jesus. His tone is playful and sincere as he describes the central figure of the Christian faith. The book walks through several characteristics of Christ. Each is illustrated and discussed from several perspectives. Eldredge often pleads with his audience to follow his arguments and join his conclusions.

I would not recommend reading this book. I am not sure who Eldredge is writing to here; clearly not me. This is a fine book but I was hoping for some deeper insight into the person of Christ. Instead I drilled through an explanation of the obvious. The constant dogging of the church and religion become tiresome. You pick up on a certain amount of bitterness that is not becoming of any piece of literature. It would be easy to draw a more colorful picture of Christ without having to talk down previous images. The book is not bad, in fact, it may be helpful to many of those who hold to a one dimensional picture of Jesus. But Beautiful Outlaw was not for me.