Eric Metaxas exhorts Americans to remember 'heroic figures,' highlights 21-year-old Nathan Hale
'Our holy Religion, the honor of our God, a glorious country, & a happy constitution is what we have to defend'
During a recent interview with The Christian Post about the importance of remembering the Christian heritage of the United States, author Eric Metaxas highlighted the story of 21-year-old patriot Nathan Hale, who was hanged by the British 250 years ago this week.
Speaking about Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World, his most recent book commemorating the 250th anniversary of American independence, Metaxas emphasized how crucial it is for Americans to know the heroic figures of the Revolution, whom he described as "tremendous American heroes who suffered and struggled for a sacred cause."
"They called it a sacred cause. This was not, 'Oh, we just want to break away from Great Britain.' No, they believed that these are God's ideas, and that we're able to bring them for the first time in history into the world in a new nation," he said.
Metaxas dismissed Ken Burns' recent PBS documentary The American Revolution as "kind of a bummer" because it offered scant coverage of both God and Hale in its retelling of history. Burns devoted exactly 10 seconds of his 12-hour miniseries to Hale's story and left out his famous last words, citing questions of their historicity.
"Nathan Hale was an astonishingly gifted, heroic young man, who was remembered by generations and generations of Americans as the man who said, as he's being hanged: 'My only regret is that I have but one life to give for my country.' It is so noble and beautiful, and he was a man of profound Christian faith," Metaxas said.
"It's shameful that not every single American who graduates from an American school doesn't know every one of these stories. They're beautiful stories; heroic figures," he added.
A teacher from Connecticut who first joined the militia after the American Revolution began in 1775, Hale was convinced to join the fight for independence as a first lieutenant in the Continental Army after receiving an inspiring letter from his friend and Yale classmate, Benjamin Tallmadge.
"Was I in your condition, I think the more extensive service would be my choice. Our holy Religion, the honor of our God, a glorious country, & a happy constitution is what we have to defend," Tallmadge wrote to him on July 4, 1775.
In September 1776, Hale volunteered for a dangerous spying mission to gather intelligence in New York for George Washington. Disguised as a Dutch schoolmaster, Hale took copious notes on British troop movements, writing them in Latin and hiding them in his shoes. He was attempting to slip back from behind enemy lines when he was captured on Sept. 21 by the British, who discovered his notes and hanged him as a spy without a trial the next day.
According to a possibly embellished account first published in 1799, Hale was denied the clergyman and Bible he requested before his execution, and he was allowed to pen farewell letters to his brother and another officer before the notoriously brutal British Captain William Cunningham ripped them up in front of him.
British Captain John Montresor, who was present at the hanging, recounted to an American officer that Hale faced his death calmly and with dignity "in the consciousness of rectitude and high intentions."
During his interview with CP, Metaxas argued that the courageous testimonies of men such as Hale and other patriots show that the American ideal of self-government emerged from a distinctly biblical worldview, though he warned that the U.S. is increasingly "living on fumes" amid the erosion of its spiritual foundation.
"Our form of government is, without any doubt, the best form of government that's ever existed in the history of the world, and it has made for the best nation in the history of the world, the freest nation," he said.
Metaxas traced the idea of a self-governing nation free of a king to the covenant at Sinai, in which the Israelites established the Lord as their sovereign after being delivered from bondage under Pharaoh. He noted self-government is a concept that ultimately comes from God Himself, but that the system is predicated upon remaining faithful to Him.
"They look to the Lord to guide them, and only because they make a covenant with the Lord are they able to govern themselves," Metaxas said of the ancient Israelites in the wilderness. "And the founders of the United States of America did exactly that, and they were explicit about it. They were conscious about it."
Noting he was not aware of how deeply the founders looked to the Sinai Covenant until he began his research for his book, Metaxas exhorted Americans to remember the biblical basis and inherent obligations of their political system.
"It is extremely important that we understand that our rights, our liberties, our equality, all of that comes from the Bible. And the men of the American Revolution knew that it came from the Bible, and were very conscious and explicit about the source of all of these good things that many of us take for granted," he said, adding that the number of Americans who have forgotten such things is one reason their liberty is slipping away.
Metaxas went on to liken a society that neglects the faith on which its institutions were built to flowers that have been cut off at the root: their beauty may linger for time, he said, but ultimately "they die."
"If you've had any experience with cut flowers, it doesn't take long before they start looking not so great. That's the story with the United States of America. We're living on fumes. We have basically, in our lifetime, I would say, been disconnected, and we need to get reconnected. And this is not a little thing. This is very central to everything," he said.
Metaxas said that as an increasingly militant secularism has pushed God from the public square and deceived many Americans into believing their rights emerged from the Enlightenment and not the Bible, the door has been opened for dangerous, subversive philosophies to creep in.
"I think that we're in the struggle we're in right now, dealing with Marxists and Islamo-fascists kind of coming in, because a lot of people have forgotten: what does it mean to be American? What are these ideas? What are the truths that are self-evident?"
Metaxas said Americans ought to remember the legacy of the faithful men who have gone before, which he observed is a biblical principle.
"We're at a moment now [when] we need to know these stories. We used to know them, and I think as we have drifted away from knowing them, we drift away from [liberty]. We become that cut flower. We're dying, and I think that liberty dies," he said, adding that the conflicts presently facing the U.S. are existential.
Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post. Send news tips to jon.brown@christianpost.com
