Today I had the pleasure to meet and interview the incomparable Eric Metaxas. Eric is a voice that needs to be heard in our culture. In this interview we discuss his latest books It's Time To Sleep, My Love and Amazing Grace (a biography of William Wilberforce), his work with Socrates In The City, and his thoughts on our current election.

(Bio adapted stolen from www.ericmetaxas.com)

In a decidedly eclectic career, Eric Metaxas has written for VeggieTales, Chuck Colson, and the New York Times, three things not ordinarily in the same sentence. He is a best-selling author whose biographies, children’s books, and works of popular apologetics have been translated into Portuguese, Spanish, Korean, and Macedonian. The Hartford Courant has declared figuring him out “like trying to stick a pushpin in a cyclone.” Nevertheless, let us try.

Eric Metaxas was born in New York City in 1963, on his father’s 36th birthday. He grew up in Danbury, Connecticut, attending the public schools there, and graduated from Yale University. At Yale he made a literary splash as editor of the Yale Record, the nation’s oldest college humor magazine, and a subsequent literal splash when, following the 100th Yale-Harvard Game, he commandeered a successful effort to throw Harvard’s goalpost into the Charles. At graduation Eric was awarded two senior prizes for his undergraduate fiction. He was also “Class Day Speaker”, co-writing and -delivering “The Class History”, a satirical address that is a Yale commencement tradition, in the process upstaging Dick Cavett, the next speaker. They would not speak for nearly two decades.

Eric’s newest children’s book, It’s Time to Sleep, My Love, illustrated by Nancy Tillman, had a first printing of 175,000 and debuted in Barnes&Noble.com’s Top 100 books in October 2008, where it was hailed as a “Goodnight Moon for the 21st century.”

Metaxas has been frequently featured as a cultural commentator on CNN and the Fox News Channel; and has discussed his own books on C-Span’s Book TV and Hannity & Colmes. He has been featured on many radio programs, including NPR’s Morning Edition and Talk of the Nation, Hugh Hewitt, the Bob Grant Show, Janet Parshall’s America, Monica Crowley, and The Alan Colmes Show.

He is the founder and host of Socrates in the City: Conversations on the Examined Life, a monthly event of”entertaining and thought-provoking discussions on ‘life, God, and other small topics’” that features such speakers as Sir John Polkinghorne, Dr. Armand Nicholi, Os Guinness and Peter Kreeft, and which was mentioned in a front-page story in the New York Times. The New Canaan Society, of which Eric is a founding and current member, was also mentioned in the article.

Eric has debated at the Oxford Union, the world’s oldest debating society, and speaks widely on a variety of topics. His no-holds-barred introductions of such figures as U. S. Senator Joseph Lieberman, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, and a febrile Rick Warren have made him much sought after as an emcee and moderator.

Eric’s acclaimed biography, Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery was published by HarperSanFrancisco, and is the “official companion book” to the feature film, also titled Amazing Grace. The book was #23 on the New York Times Bestseller list, and has been lauded by Stanley Crouch (”…a superb history of the British fight against slavery”; Former NYC Congressman Floyd Flake (”magnificent… will stand as a living landmark…”); John Wilson (”a crackling bonfire of clarity and truth.”); and many others.

Eric’s Everything You Always Wanted to Know About God (but were afraid to ask), came out in 2005, and was praised by Ann B. Davis, Alice on The Brady Bunch (”I am absolutely smitten with this book!”), Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (”The difficulty is not to gush.”). The sequel, titled Everything ELSE You Always Wanted to Know About God (but were afraid to ask) was published in 2007.

Eric serves on the vestry of Calvary/St. George’s Episcopal Church, and lives in Manhattan, New York, with his wife and daughter. He is currently at work on a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, to be published by HarperOne in April 2009.