ERWIN MCMANUS AND SOUL CRAVINGS: AN EXPLORATION OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT


This is the 9 Marks review of Soul Cravings by Cultural Architect and distinguished futurist Erwin McManus that’s referenced in a post by Alex Leung called Erwin McManus Misses The Mark.

In this piece by Jonathan Leeman, which is expressed as an open letter to McManus, he says:

Dear Mr. McManus,

I just finished reading your book Soul Cravings, which I first heard about in a podcast interview you did…it makes me genuinely sad that I would not give your book to give a non-Christian…To state it a little more starkly, I finished the book and immediately went to your church’s website to see if I could find some sort of doctrinal affirmation, and was genuinely surprised to find your church’s affirmation of the Southern Baptist Convention’s 2000 Baptist Faith & Message. The "applied theology" of your book falls significantly short of the basics affirmed in this document…

You write,

Jesus said that the kingdom of God is within us….It seems what he is implying is that we have a better chance of finding God in the universe within us than in the one that surrounds us. And it is on this path that I invited you to walk with me. I invite you to engage in an exploration of the human spirit, to journey deep inside yourself and search out the mystery of the universe that exists with you…

The problem is, it’s patently untrue that all human beings are all really seeking God, as you put it. Mr. McManus, please, find me one verse in the entire Bible—just one!—that says human beings in the flesh are seeking God. It says just the opposite. It says that we hate God (at least the true one) and God’s rule. It says that we want to be God. And it says that our hearts are literally enslaved to opposing him.

You can read the entire letter of review right here.