It was December 2010. I arrived at the breathtaking Frontier Ranch in Buena Vista, CO to attend the Wild at Heart Advanced Boot Camp, led by author, co-founder, and director of Ransomed Heart Ministries, John Eldredge. During the 3-days in the Rockies taking a deeper look and walk with the interpersonal relationship with Jesus, this band of brothers over 350 strong from around the world was intrigued to hear Eldredge and his Ransomed Heart team (Craig McConnell, Bart Hansen, and Morgan Snyder) begin to talk about a new book about the life – and personality – of Jesus.
As 2011 winds down, I was asked to review Eldredge’s latest novel, Beautiful Outlaw (Faithwords, 225 pages), I was actually at a point where seeing that Jesus (or meeting with him in Scripture and more often than not misconnecting) was becoming difficult, labored, without much desire. I wasn’t 20 pages into the book when Eldredge – talking about how essential it was to discover the personality of Jesus…undraped by what might be happening in church or Christianity or churchianity or, worse yet, through the religious haze of what characterized most of what, Scripturally, were the arenas in which most of Jesus’ most awesome heart-to-heart cage matches took place – put a deeper truth on the tip of the sword:
‘What is missing in our Gospel reading – and in our attempts to “read” what Jesus is saying and doing in our own lives right now, this week – is his personality, undraped by religion. Let’s see if we can find this.’
Eldredge, author of such bestselling books as The Sacred Romance (co-authored with Brent Curtis), Desire, Wild at Heart, Waking the Dead, and co-author with his wife, Stasi, of Captivating and Love & War, exhibits courage and boldness deftly blended with a fluid and winsome narrative early on. In the pages of his Introduction, he uncorks a fine bottle of context:
“We don’t need further speculation or debate. We need Jesus himself. And you can have him. Really. You can experience Jesus intimately. You were meant to. For despite the vandalizing of Jesus Christ by religion and the world, he is still alive and very much himself. Though nowadays it takes a bit of uncovering to know him as he is.”
And, sadly, perhaps the drapes measured by most churches to fit the windows looking onto the personality of Jesus miss such things as his playfulness, fierce intention, his human face, extravagant generosity, and disruptive honesty. “The man shoots straight,” Eldredge says in a chapter about the honesty of Jesus. “Sometimes he’s playful; sometimes he’s fierce; the next moment he’s generous. This is the beauty of his disruptive honesty – you can count on Jesus to tell you the truth in the best possible way for you to hear it.” (p. 71)
This is the Jesus many, including myself, have been searching for. I thought I met Jesus six years ago for the first time. Eldredge, with a joyful wit and razor sharp (yet perhaps accurate) sting to some of his projections on the church, invites the reader into the scandalous freedom with which Jesus – as fully God and fully man – lives, the cunning he has (…and, oh man, does he use it, especially against street gangs like the Pharisees…), how his heart overflows with humility, trueness, and beauty, and how loving Jesus – really loving him as he is and is meant to be – letting Jesus be himself with you and through the daily encounters can fill one’s life and be the powerful winds to clear away the “religious fog.”
And the reader is invited to know Jesus in a revolutionary way, and Eldredge’s writing – and the challenge behind the questions – does drive some stakes into ground: Why does false reverence replace loving Jesus? Does knowing about God substitute for knowing God? Why shouldn’t power displays be confused for intimacy with Jesus? Isn’t the stereotypical ‘Christian service’ really just a substitute for friendship with Christ? Does the church offer – or prevail – under a trivial morality? I found Eldredge’s style to be a courageous blend of unvarnished aim for the heart of his readers and the unmistakable revolutionary images of Jesus that have been covered over by so much religious coatings. As the chapters unfolded towards the Epilogue, Eldredge is wistful yet compelling: “I am groping for the words that will somehow move you to hold on to this. The train blows its whistle; the mother chokes up and the father clasps the last handshake ever so tightly, because they know what is at stake. My friends, so much is at stake.” (p. 211)
While others may aim low to find fault with a sense of Eldredge (or other authors) positing solutions for the church if only it would listen and take action, a majority of voices seem to be queuing up to say, ‘Hey, yeah, this is the Jesus I ache to know and am ready to meet.’ In a sense, it’s a Gospel that needs to be read.
In conjunction with the release of Beautiful Outlaw, Ransomed Heart Ministries (
http://www.beautifuloutlaw.net/) is offering a free download of a companion 18-part video series for the book, along with a free participant guide for small group study. As Wild at Heart (2001, Thomas Nelson) impacted so many men for the battle, adventure, and beauty in pursuing the heart of Jesus, Beautiful Outlaw and Eldredge so brilliantly and bravely challenges that “…a true knowledge of Jesus is our greatest need and our greatest happiness.”
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