Set in the real world of a Christian radio host, nonprofit work, and everyday neighbors, Unoffendable threads together personal anecdotes, biblical portraits, and historical examples to argue for a life freed from anger. The “cast” is made up of the author himself alongside divine figures and real people whose choices—toward grace or grievance—become vivid case studies. Through their stories, the book explores how surrendering offense opens the door to joy, humility, and deeper love.
Main Characters
Brant Hansen
As author, narrator, and guide, Brant Hansen frames the entire journey from a rules-loving “Pharisee” to a man who deliberately relinquishes the right to be offended. Self-aware and often hilariously self-deprecating, he mines his missteps—like the church-organist spat and his “Smoking Stinks” T-shirt—to expose how ego fuels anger (see the Chapter 1-5 Summary). His theological pivot grows from questioning the cultural assumption that “righteous anger” is virtuous, concluding instead that human anger corrodes the soul. Along the way, he learns from faithful practitioners such as Michael, Sherri, and Sokreaksa Himm, and he tests his convictions in ordinary relationships with family, radio listeners, and neighbors like Jarrod. His arc traces a movement from control and argumentation to a restful trust in God’s grace, which reshapes how he treats both friends and enemies.
Jesus
Within the book’s framework, Jesus is the unchanging pattern of unoffendable love—unscandalized by sinners, radically forgiving, and relentlessly humble. He welcomes tax collectors and prostitutes, teaches enemy-love, and ultimately prays for his executioners, establishing a standard that dismantles retribution as a Christian reflex. In perfect unity with God the Father and patient with faltering disciples like Peter (see the Chapter 1-5 Summary), he models mercy without compromising truth. Rather than undergoing a character arc, he functions as the fixed point by which Hansen and readers recalibrate their reactions to offense, injury, and injustice.
God
Portrayed as loving Father and sovereign King, God supplies both the motive and the power for an unoffendable life. Unlike human anger, his perfect justice sees hearts clearly, so vengeance belongs to him alone; humans are invited into grace, patience, and trust. Stories and parables—such as the generous vineyard master—recast him not as a prickly scorekeeper but as a scandalously gracious host who frees people from ego-defensiveness (see the Chapter 6-10 Summary). As readers’ perceptions shift from appeasing a stern deity to resting in a generous Father, their posture toward others softens accordingly.
Supporting Characters
Michael
A friend who opens an evangelical coffee shop in a progressive arts district, Michael opts for radical hospitality when confronted with provocative art, even paying for the exhibit’s catering (see the Chapter 1-5 Summary). His winsome strategy—serving strawberries instead of fighting culture wars—shows that unoffendable love is active, disarming, and evangelistically fruitful.
Martin Luther King Jr.
As a historical exemplar, Martin Luther King Jr. demonstrates how to confront systemic evil without hate, resolving to refuse anger even under violent persecution. His life answers the book’s “What about injustice?” challenge, proving that love-fueled courage can drive lasting reform more powerfully than rage (see the Chapter 11-15 Summary).
Sherri
Hansen’s radio producer, Sherri offers a modern portrait of costly forgiveness when she listens to, forgives, and embraces a man steeped in racism—and even seeks out his father, the source of that prejudice (see the Chapter 16-20 Summary). By treating fellow believers as family, she shows that identity in Christ empowers reconciliation beyond sentiment or convenience.
Jarrod
A grieving neighbor whose pain spills into anger and rudeness, Jarrod becomes the crucible in which Hansen practices patient presence. Serving him means absorbing offense without retaliation, revealing that real ministry is less about answers and more about faithful proximity to someone’s sorrow.
Sokreaksa Himm
A survivor of the Cambodian genocide, Sokreaksa Himm moves from vengeance to forgiveness after encountering Christ, ultimately releasing the men who murdered his family (see the Chapter 21-24 Summary). His story is the book’s most stunning proof that forgiveness is not naivete but spiritual power that breaks cycles of hate.
Minor Characters
- The “Round Organ Man”: A church chaperone who threatens to beat up Hansen over a petty rule, satirizing how religious anger can become absurdly disproportionate.
- Agnes: A Honolulu prostitute celebrated by Tony Campolo’s impromptu birthday party, embodying the outcasts Jesus welcomes and the scandal of grace.
- The Imam in Indonesia: Initially hostile to a Christian aid team, he’s won over by unoffendable service, showing how self-giving love dissolves entrenched suspicion.
- The “Ultimate Dude”: A brilliant, decorated surgeon and Special Forces veteran whose deep insecurity illustrates that achievement cannot secure identity apart from God.
Character Relationships & Dynamics
At the heart of the book is a teacher–disciple pattern: Jesus and God provide the theological and ethical blueprint, while Hansen apprentices himself to their way. This vertical relationship reframes all horizontal ones, turning neighbors, colleagues, and even antagonists into opportunities to practice grace rather than nurse grievance.
Among the human cast, lived examples function as peer-mentors. Michael models proactive welcome in contested cultural spaces; Sherri embodies family-first forgiveness within the church; Sokreaksa Himm testifies to grace under unimaginable evil; and Martin Luther King Jr. links nonviolence to love, not anger. These witnesses collectively shape Hansen’s pilgrimage from argumentation to humility, reinforcing that unoffendability is learned in community, not in isolation.
The book also stages illuminating contrasts. Hansen’s earlier self-righteousness stands against Jesus’s calm mercy, exposing how zeal can mask pride. Religious gatekeepers are juxtaposed with outcasts like Agnes, highlighting the kingdom’s upside-down logic in which the “sinners” who receive mercy go home justified, while the respectable risk missing grace. Finally, pastoral presence emerges as the ministry model: Hansen with Jarrod, Michael with local artists, and Sherri with a repentant racist each demonstrate that love closes the distance anger creates—turning potential enemies into neighbors, and neighbors into family.