Eric Metaxas (born June 27, 1963) is an American author, speaker, and conservative radio host. He has written three biographies, Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery about William Wilberforce (2007), Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy about Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2011), and Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World (2017). He also published a memoir, Fish Out of Water: A Search for the Meaning of Life (2021) as well as several books, including If You Can Keep it (2017) and Letter to the American Church (2022). He has also written humor, children's books and scripts for VeggieTales.
Metaxas was born in the New York City neighborhood of Astoria, Queens and grew up in Danbury, Connecticut. He graduated from Yale University (1984, B.A., English).[1][2] While there, he edited the Yale Record, the nation's oldest college humor magazine. Metaxas lives in Manhattan with his wife and daughter.[3] He is Greek on his father's side and German on his mother's; he was raised in a Greek Orthodox environment.[4]
Although he was raised in the Greek Orthodox Church and has not formally left the denomination (saying he has "great respect" for it), Metaxas has attended Calvary-St. George's Episcopal Church.[5][6] He has spoken at Times Square Church.[7] Metaxas describes himself as a "Mere Christian" in the words of C.S. Lewis. In 2007, he said his books "don't touch upon anything at all where Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians differ. They express just the basics of the faith, from a basic, ecumenical Christian viewpoint. They only talk about the Christian faith that they have agreement on."[5] In his book Martin Luther,[8] however, Metaxas criticized the political power structures that had emerged from the medieval Catholic Church and that it was only with Luther that the "true Gospel" was rescued "from under its crushing welter of ecclesiastical and political medieval structures."[8]
Writing
Metaxas is the author of more than thirty children's books, including the bestsellers Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving[9] and It's Time to Sleep, My Love, illustrated by Nancy Tillman.[10] His books have been translated into more than twenty-five languages.
Metaxas's works If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty and Miracles: What They Are, Why They Happen, and How They Can Change Your Life are both New York Times bestselling books.[11][12]
Metaxas's biography of Wilberforce, Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, was the companion book to the 2006 film.[13]
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy was named the 2010 Evangelical Christian Publishers Association Christian Book of the Year.[14]Bonhoeffer is a New York Times best seller, climbing to #1 in the e-book category.[15] It also won the 2011 John C. Pollock Award for Christian Biography awarded by Beeson Divinity School and a 2011 Christopher Award.[16][17] Although the book is popular in the United States among evangelical Christians, Bonhoeffer scholars have criticized Metaxas's book as unhistorical, theologically weak, and philosophically naive.[18] Professor of German history and Bonhoeffer scholar Richard Weikart, for example, credits his "engaging writing style," but claims Metaxas has a lack of intellectual background to interpret Bonhoeffer properly.[19] The biography has also been criticized by Bonhoeffer scholars Victoria Barnett[20] and Clifford Green.[18] Despite these widespread and substantial criticisms of his work by experts on Bonhoeffer, Metaxas' book has been praised by popular magazines as a "weighty, riveting analysis of the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer" which "bring[s] Bonhoeffer and other characters to vivid life".[21][22]
Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World became a New York Times bestselling book in October 2017 [23][24] and claimed a New York Times Editor's Pick in December 2017.[25]Carlos Eire gave the book a full page review in the New York Times, stating, "Metaxas knows how to tell a story and how to develop characters, and this talent makes his narrative at once gripping and accessible." But he also accused Metaxas of doing naive Whig history, portraying Luther as "a titanic figure who single-handedly slays the dragon of the Dark Ages, rescues God from an interpretive dungeon, invents individual freedom and ushers in modernity."[26] Catholic church historian John Vidmar writes that Metaxas ignored more than a century of scholarship on Luther in order to write a "sweeping and largely uncritical endorsement for Martin Luther." In order to reach his conclusions, Vidmar writes, "Metaxas needs to misunderstand, denigrate, and then caricature centuries of human effort and achievement in language that is colloquial, casual, and often flippant."[27]
If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty, released June 14, 2016.
Metaxas is a prominent supporter of Donald Trump.[33][34] In 2019, Metaxas published two children's books called Donald Builds the Wall and Donald Drains the Swamp in a series called "Donald the Caveman". Other characters in the book include those Metaxas has called "an angry little girl who looks a little bit like AOC" and "an angry, crazy old man who looks a little bit like a guy named Bernie."[35] In a November 2019 interview with Franklin Graham, Metaxas said that "screaming protesters" to Trump were "almost demonic".[36][37]
After the 2020 presidential election, Metaxas endorsed Donald Trump's claim that the election was tainted by voter fraud,[38] predicting on Twitter: "Trump will be inaugurated. For the high crimes of trying to throw a U.S. presidential election, many will go to jail." Metaxas also told Trump on Metaxas's radio show that "Jesus is with us in this fight" to overturn the 2020 election. "I'd be happy to die in this fight," Metaxas added.[39][40] In an appearance on Charlie Kirk's show, he repeated the claim saying, “We need to fight to the death, to the last drop of blood.”[41]
In the late 1990s Metaxas wrote BreakPoint radio commentaries for former Richard Nixon aide and Prison Fellowship founder Charles "Chuck" Colson. Upon Colson's death in 2012, Metaxas, along with John Stonestreet, became the voice of BreakPoint, which now airs weekdays on 1350 outlets across the country.[53]
On August 27, 2020, Eric Metaxas was at Trump's Republican National Convention acceptance speech on the White House lawn. Afterwards, Metaxas left the White House with a crowd of people, entering streets where protesters had been staging demonstrations. Video footage (shared on Instagram and later removed) showed anti-Trump protester Anthony Harrington biking past a group of Trump supporters, yelling "Fuck Trump, fuck you!" As Harrington passed by, Metaxas punched him in the head.[64] Metaxas later admitted punching Harrington because Harrington was verbally abusive and he "felt threatened." Harrington disputed this characterization, stating, "He attacked me. I wasn't threatening or intimidating. I was on a rented bicycle," and that he may pursue a civil case against Metaxas.[65][66][67]
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1 2 Green, Clifford (October 5, 2010). "Hijacking Bonhoeffer". The Christian Century. Retrieved September 8, 2012.
↑ Richard Weikart, "Metaxas' Counterfeit Bonhoeffer: An Evangelical Critique: Review of Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy", California State University. Archived December 2, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
↑ Eire, Carlos (December 24, 2017). "The Year of Luther". The New York Times Book Review. p.9.
↑ Vidmar, John (2018). "Review of Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World". Historian. 80 (3): 617–619. doi:10.1111/hisn.12984. S2CID149937948.
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