The Downward Spiral

Uprising: A Revolution of the Soul

By Erwin McManus
Nelson Books, 260 Pages

Oh, Svengali
Oh Svengali
wide eyes mesmerize
aint he clever
Oh Svengali
---Steve Taylor

This book is dangerous
---Dust jacket blurb on book Uprising: Revolution of the Soul

The opening metaphor in Erwin McManus book Uprising provides a perfect metaphor for the growing concern over the Emergent Church and its aberrant doctrines: a furious river. The abuse of power in leadership, I believe, will be the next phase of concern, at least, in the case of McManus. Watching the growing tide of unrest, spilt over on the blogs, radio shows, and now, the halls of the Southern Baptist Convention, we can see the river McManus writes about that is a "combination of fury and hunger." The book itself hopes to rise downward, but the doctrine he espouses in it set Christianity backward and can ultimately lead it down a cliff crashing on the rocks below.
The problem with this book is both in its content and style. While most of McManus’s books are fairly simple and manageable, Uprising is one of the exceptions. It is a depressing, dreary read. This book is punctuated with assertion after assertion. Add to that, there are more anecdotes and personal histories than perhaps any of his other books. The Bible verses come off as mere conveniences for his many opinions on a variety of subjects, including absolute power, car hunting, Greek mythology, humility, and the Oakland Raiders. Uprising seems more the idiosyncratic musings of McManus than the soul revolution it promises to be. Worse still, McManus weaves his chapters with mundane, clunky prose:

“While an unwillingness to love is an outcome of choice when we are emotional consumers, an unexpected consequence is the inability to experience love.” He writes on wholeness: “…while wholeness is often thought of as a personal reality; its essence is far more communal.” Again on wholeness he writes: “When we are broken, wholeness can seem either elusive or illusory. Our desperate search for it often takes us on a journey to find that which we have ever known.”

When reading such passages, it is difficult to remember his thesis. I found myself reading the dust jacket or scanning the table of contents to remind myself. But even then…what is it? Like the Barbarian Way, and like Oakland, according to Gertrude Stein, there is no there, there. Perhaps, given its subtitle, it is a book about our journey with Christ? Is it a spiritual guide, or in this case, given McManus’s Emergent church bona fides, a self-help book? The book is hard to navigate, but there are some revealing passages. In the opening chapter, there is a sentence that is so astonishing in its obtuseness that I would not be surprised if it is removed from future editions of the book. One of the many ideas that animate McManus is that passion has been quashed in the modern church. He writes:

“Our incessant focus on the elimination of sin has more than contributed to the problem of passionless living.”

Well, there you have it. Now we know what’s wrong with the modern church. We obsess over doing what is right. Later in the paragraph, he writes:

“We’ve been taught that God’s solutions to restraining our passions is His commands. The result has been a Christian religion focused on rules, rituals, and obligations. In this regard Christianity as a religion is essentially no different or better than the other major world religions.”

Those who have been carefully following McManus teachings should not be surprised with such nonsense. This type of theology, a sneaky contempt for spiritual disciplines by calling them “rules” and “rituals” is peddled in The Barbarian Way.
Finally, there is a page in this book that proves instructive when considering McManus not only as writer but as shepherd of a very large flock. There, on page 58, begins the story of an elder dismissed for a petty reason. It was more of a miscommunication than any real charge leveled by the church at this elder. McManus, struck by the seriousness of this elder’s contrition, helped restore this man to the church. The passage makes McManus seem gentle and reasonable. And in fact, he was, at that moment. If only the same could be said of the way he treated the young youth pastor, who was fired along with his wife on account of someone else’s sin, or that elder who was forced to retire after twenty five years of service. And there are others. So many lives…If the dust jacket blurb seems unintentionally funny and appropriate, it is: This book is dangerous. Mr. McManus, we know.