About Erwin McManus: Erwin Raphael McManus is an American author, lecturer, and pastor of Salvadorean descent.
It is the creative and enterprising spirit of people that is indispensable. Everything else is supplemental.
When we look at history, we see history is made up of the heroes of their times. Yet, somehow we miss this when we put on the lens of the Scriptures.
I have so much confidence in the reality of Jesus that I feel no pressure to try to make people act or be a certain way. I'm banking everything on the fact that God actually changes people.
I think Christianity is the same as Buddhism and Hinduism - whenever a religion begins to say that these are the things you have to do to be loved by God, you have a religion.
I realize that I live on the bubble of insanity. I feel the weight of human suffering, loneliness and despair on me all the time. It's not getting easier; if anything, it's always right on the edge of my skin.
You can plant a church and grow a church. That's not that hard to do, but it's harder to be a viable source of transformation in a city or your time or space.
Religion as a whole specializes in sin management. It's all about organizing humanity in such a way that we cause as little damage as possible.