My Reading Life 2018: The Year I Discovered Metaxas

Eric Metaxas interviews Stephen Meyer

Dallas Conference on Science & Faith 

Occasionally I run across a writer who has such a gifted command of words and communication ability, that I am literally in awe.  Eric Metaxas is one such person.  This discovery began during the summer when I set reading goals to actually read some of the books sitting on my home library shelves. Several years ago, my husband had proudly acquired and read a hardback copy of Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas, and it had earned a prominent and intimidating place on the shelf. The cover jacket of Bonhoeffer’s eyes peering into mine had been daring me for years to tackle this titanic tome.  Understand that I am not one to ever choose to read a history book for pleasure reading. But I took the challenge of Bonhoeffer strictly for self-discipline and because I needed a new audio book to fill the times of tedium in my day. I am very grateful to Hoopla which has a wide selection of audiobooks available to me for free through my local library. Bonhoeffer, read by Malcolm Hillgartner, was available for 22 hours 34 minutes of self-discipline.

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

I was moved by two things. First, I was moved by the man, Bonhoeffer, his life, his conversion, his intense devotion to God, his courage, and his brilliance. Second, I was impressed by Eric Metaxas. Very impressed.  Several hours into the book, there was a phrase that made me stop the audio while I was getting ready for work, write down what I had just heard, and read it to my husband.  In thousands of hours of listening to audio books, I had never done that before! I later looked up the passage and marked it in our printed copy.  It’s on page 208 when Metaxas is relating the enormous tension that was brewing between the German church, Reich Bishop Muller, and Hitler.  Hitler had again delayed a much-anticipated meeting for eight more long, stress-filled days. Metaxas writes:

“The eight days of additional waiting were an eternity of strained inaction.

            Bonhoeffer followed every detail of these hemorrhoidal isometrics from England via his mother’s almost daily updates.”  (emphasis mine)

I am not a fan of bathroom humor or references.  I teach 5 and 6-year-olds for a living, so I get my fill, thank you very much.  But I have to admit, that is brilliant writing.

I think it was at this point that I had an Inigo Montoya/Dread Pirate Roberts moment… “Who ARE you?” I asked myself.  I started trying to find out something about this author, Eric Metaxas.  I already knew he had presented on his book, Amazing Grace, as a guest lecturer at my Alma Mater, Harding University, in January 2017 (how I regret not being there).  But now he had my attention and I started reading the “About the Author” quips and checking hits on Google and YouTube. After listening to his conversion story, listening to some of his interviews, and visiting his website, I knew I was a fan of this funny, smart, Yale grad, NYT bestselling author, radio personality, Christian husband, and father, seeker of truth and over-achiever.

But my Metaxas discoveries were just beginning.

Amazing Grace: 
William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery

I clearly needed to read Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery for my next Metaxas experience. Again, the audio version was available from Hoopla, but I acquired my own printed copy shortly after listening to the audio. (There are pictures in the printed copy!) I have long been a fan of the Amazing Grace movie that came out in 2006 with Albert Finney and Ioan Gruffudd, and now I was interested to learn Metaxas’ connection to the movie. In an interview I watched on YouTube, Metaxas explained that in a recorded discussion on another topic, he had made a reference to William Wilberforce and how his Herculean persistence to abolish slavery completely changed the world.  Someone listening to that recorded discussion contacted Metaxas and asked if he would write a biography about Wilberforce in honor of the 200^th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade so that it would be available about the time the movie was to be released. Metaxas had never aspired to be a biographer, but you can guess the answer.  And what do you know, not too shabby for a first try.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About God 
(But Were Afraid to Ask)

Back to the goal of reading the neglected books at home, I ran across a new and unread copy of Everything You Always Wanted to Know About God (But Were Afraid to Ask). “Where did this come from?!” I asked in total surprise!  Where and how long we had had it, neither my husband nor I knew, but now, knowing something of Eric Metaxas, I was thrilled to find another of his volumes and began reading. Two hundred-plus easy-to-read pages boldly ask and respond to big questions like “How Can You Prove God’s Existence?” and “Isn’t One Religion as Good as Another?” and 18 other such questions. His wit and humor are very evident in this book as his style is like having a conversation with him over a cup of coffee. Yet he treats each heavy topic with the respect and gravity that it deserves.

In the back of that book is a “Recommended Reading List” so I started in on that too.  To my surprise, I had already read one of them, Total Truth by Nancy Pearcy.  Earlier in the summer I had discovered this book also on our home shelves, with neither me nor my husband remembering how we acquired it.  But these little hidden treasures were starting to feel like Christmas in July.

Socrates in the City: 
Conversations on the Examined Life

Having finished the audio of Amazing Grace, I searched Hoopla again and found an audio version of Socrates in the City which was instructive and entertaining to say the least. Socrates in the City is a modern-day Mars Hill meeting-of-intellectual-minds held in New York City. Invited speakers are outliers of knowledge in their particular fields and thus a privilege to listen to, with a Q&A offered to the audience at the end. It was in listening to this that I really got a sense of Metaxas’ personality as he MC’s each gathering. His lengthy introductions of each speaker clearly reflect his jones to be a standup comic.

Bible ABCWhen school started again, I was looking over our school’s selection of library books and I unsuspectingly spied the name “Eric Metaxas” on a book spine.  His name was showing up everywhere!TheBible ABCis a collection of 26 short abecedarian poems about Bible characters.  I now own my own copy and use it at school routinely.Of course, you can expect J for Jesus and N for Noah, but would you expect O for Onesimus or Y for Yahweh?  In EM’s bio information I learned that he has written some 30 books for children.I checked out several from my public library and found another favorite inSquanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving.That is now a must have for my classroom library.

Martin Luther: The Man Who 
Rediscovered God and Changed the World

I had to wait till October 2018 before I could get Martin Luther on audio from interlibrary loan, but it was worth the wait. The big bonus was that Metaxas himself reads the text, and so you get the genuine tone that only Metaxas can bring to his work.  Again, not wishing to write another biography, he was approached (and possibly nagged) by influential friends who had the idea that with the 500^th anniversary of the Reformation at hand, the world deserved another Luther biography, insisting and persisting that only Metaxas could do it.  In the end, their insistence and persistence overcame his resistance. (Pause here to give thanks.) After listening to the 20 hours 30 minutes of unabridged audio, I bought one hardback copy and two paperback copies of the book (pictures again!) and I haven’t stopped talking about it.

Wordsmithing his way through years of pre-Renaissance history, Metaxas resurrects Luther’s early life and de-thorns some of the nastier legends that had become overgrown in his literary cemetery. Taking a comprehensive look at Luther’s life and accomplishments, many facts and stories Metaxas includes are jaw droppingly outrageous, incredibly funny and/or sad, and often unbelievable except that you know “you just can’t make this stuff up.” Growing up in a post-Reformation world, it’s hard for me to imagine that most of the religious leaders of Luther’s day had never read the scriptures, and people who were trying to get the scriptures translated into common languages were literally burned at the stake for their heresy.  Luther himself expected to be incinerated at any given moment because once he got his opportunity to read the Bible for himself, he could not keep quiet.

Metaxas has written many more books which are not mentioned in this work, but these are mentioned that you may go out and see for yourself what Metaxas has to offer. I can promise you that for me and my house, reading Metaxas in 2019 will not be merely an exercise in self-discipline.