If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty

From the very beginning, Eric Metaxas, writing from a Christian worldview, engages the reader with reminiscent historical accounts and thoughts of patriotism. He skillfully brings you along on his own eye-opening journey of discovery his deep and reverential awe for America. He begins with both a charge to educate and also to be an active participant in the keeping of the trust that has been given us through the founding of the United States of America. He reminds us of what it means to love our country and what it means to be an American. Fascinating and detailed biographical sketches and quotations from America’s founding fathers and from other significant leaders of our country are woven throughout in Metaxas-style masterful storytelling with skillful command of language and vocabulary, along with colorful and vivid descriptions. He delivers impassioned pleas to recover the spirit of patriotism, to recall biblical virtues, remember our responsibilities, recall both the good and bad of our past, and most importantly, to take action in doing our part to preserve America for ourselves, our future, and the world. Eric Metaxas builds a strong argument for the multi-dimensional components of the “how and why” our country, Constitution, and government was established, and then he dissects the fundamental aspects of virtue and leadership that contributed to its founding. Heroes are extolled and remembered for their lack of selfishness and pride and for their desire only for the good of our country. This book is an enjoyable and moving read, written intellectually but on a level that it easily comprehendible. Metaxas builds a strong case for the charge of keeping and defending America, and I made copious notes of his quote-worthy statements. Many of the biographical sketches will be familiar if you have read his books Amazing Grace and Seven Men and the Secret of Their Greatness, but they are, nonetheless, crucial to the complete understanding of the concepts he puts forth in this book. Once again, Metaxas delivers a compelling read. Written by Monica Flippin

This book is great! It should be required reading for any voter. This book explains the deeper and unknown critical parts of our democracy. These parts are the things most schools forget in the name of political correctness. This book will open up minds to new realities. What most people forget is that the founding fathers thought there was more to democracy than just voting and paying taxes. To put it in modern terms it is more than a purple finger to mark that you voted. Citizens needed to have certain values to make it work. Those values are so important it was there before the country started. The book shows that in great detail. The nation needs other things to keep man in check. As Ben Franklin said, " As nations become corrupt and vicious they have more need of masters." That master in other countries is the police state. Franklin found in his autobiography that "the secret to American Freedom was American virtue." That is checked here in America by an internal master in our hearts. John Adams said that, " The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue. He went on to say that if people did not have virtue in greater measure they would not have a liberty that would last. Eric Metaxas explains that to an average reader. He shows how the work of George Whitefield, before the country's inception set the ground. That revival he helped start gave America that virtue. America needed other things. A moral leadership is critical. Lack of that undermines citizen faith in the government. Metaxas also shows how it is important that people have a love for the country. That helps provide energy to keep things going forth in good times and bad. The book does what others don't. It shows why virtue is important. Why values keep man's sinful nature in check. The book shows that without a moral people our government is at stake.

This is a very well-written book to the extent that it is an easy read, with plenty of poetic phraseology and interesting characterizations. I read it to update my own book “George Washington’s Liberty Key.” While I didn’t find anything really new about George Washington, I didn’t see any obvious errors about him or anyone else mentioned in the book, with the exception of Metaxas’ insistence that Parson Weems wrote that the six-year-old Washington “chopped down” the cherry tree. Actually, Washington was said to have “barked” it, ie cut the bark enough to seriously interrupt the sap flow so that the tree would eventually die. As well, along with a number of eminent historians, I disagree with Metaxas’ “arguable” assertion that Lincoln was a greater president than Washington. I did notice that much of the book is spent discussing and supporting Os Guinness’ “Golden Triangle of Freedom” (Freedom requires Virtue; Virtue requires Faith; Faith requires Freedom.” My own book’s assessment (from studying Washington’s and Lafayette’s words) is that the “Key to Liberty” is found in the triad of “Character (unwritten rules of virtuous behavior), Culture (national character), and Constitution (written rules).” I think I tend to agree with Metaxas that many of the pragmatic Founders (to include Washington) believed that enlightened morality was not enough to keep the average American virtuous and on the straight and narrow, that the average person needs religion, by which is probably meant a God-fearing (eternal punishment) belief system. Metaxas is quite clear in asserting that a Judeo-Christian belief system is what is called for. On the other hand, the reader is left to wonder as to whether all Judeo-Christian religions qualify as adequate and how close other religions, even those that might be antithetical to American values, might come to fulfilling the Golden Triangle’s faith requirement. All in all, the book is essentially a timely, interesting exhortation to “keep the Republic,” with a number of the author’s examples of how to do so: some of which are faith, tolerance, ritual, hero worship, dedication to patriotic art, etc. Check out one of William J. Bahr’s books: George Washington's Liberty Key: Mount Vernon's Bastille Key – the Mystery and Magic of Its Body, Mind, and Soul , a best seller at Mount Vernon.

Good, solid book. Makes you think

Metaxas talks a good talk: he is a superb radio host. This book reads like one of the radio show conversations, witty, imploring, conservative, (insert oxford comma) and intelligent. Occasionally he sneaks a twenty dollar word into his uncomplicated prose - trying to stretch the vocabulary of the unwashed masses. It’s a forgivable flaw given his unassuming radio persona and fluid writing. The book exhorts us that if we want to keep our liberty, we have to keep it. See what I did there — Metaxas style — I used the book title and played on the two meanings of keep. If we want to have liberty, we have to tend it. He guides us to the work of the founders who were knew experientially that liberty is a fragile. Licence subverts liberty. Freedom depends on self-control. Or as he puts it in the book, freedom requires virtue and virtue needs faith. He makes the case for, at minimum, pietas. Eric’s call to return the American hero to the pedestal is a voice crying in the Empire State Building. And it’s a welcome voice. For too long, 50 years according to Metaxas, Americans have ceased looking up to heroes. And he’s raisin’ ‘em back up! George Whitfield, John Wesly, Nathan Hale, Ben Franklin, George Washington, Paul Revere, John F Kennedy, Eisenhower, and the others he mentions are worthy of honor. Not one among them was close to perfect, but all met challenge with courage. Their character should inspire us, but only if we know of their virtue - even if it's a singular virtue. It’s not that we must hide their sins, but neither must we magnify them to pandemonius proportions. These were real men with dirt under their fingernails and some with ugly bones in their closets, but they chose the difficult path, at least some of the time, for the good of the country. Can we at least honour heroic acts if we cannot honour heroic men? Metaxas ends with a call to love America, not as a perfect country, but as our country. A country we must hold up to its ideals. He writes about the need for ritual, which is essential for patriotism. (See James K. A. Smith’s You are What You Love for more on how ritual, which he calls liturgy, shapes our loves). But the power of lost rituals cannot easily be conjured up, making the preservation of the rituals we have pivotal to the patriotism of the next generation. Hence his encouragement to engage the power of poetry to stir love of country in children. Eric tries to balance whitewashing American history and viewing America as the source of the world’s problems. I don't think these two irreconcilable views are the problem. The problem is the not hatred of America by the fringe, but the indifference of the masses. The growing idea among the technocracy that nations and patriotism are a relic of the past is the biggest threat to love of country. Love of country is as antiquated as wearing bloomers, to the trans-national tech companies like Google and Apple whose interest lie in spurning America rather than loving America. This book is a valuable corrective to the apathy to America wafting from urbane elites. The book stuffs in too many long quotes, a forgivable offence because they are quotes that should be known to Americans. Maybe this book will change that. In summary, not a weighty work of research or a spellbinding work of art, but a sensible lesson in why America is great and why we need to love her and help others to love her. And we need to help each other be better people if we truly want to Make America Great Again — registered trademark, all rights reserved — for the people... BoldlyAsserted Got a free review copy in exchange for an unbiased review.

History is being re-written. Rather that looking at what this country accomplished in the light of the 17th and 18th centuries, it is being judged by today's social justice. Our cynical society looks past the good, the honorable, and the true in a concerted effort to "find the dirt" on our founding fathers. Teachers love to point out that Jefferson and Washington were slave owners -- and when viewed in the light of today's understanding, this builds impenetrable emotional barriers that prevents students from even considering these men as heroes who dedicated their lives to the creation of the most exceptional experiment in political history; the idea that people could govern themselves. Eric Metaxas reopens the doors to examine the people who helped to found our country and he challenges us to, instead, examine the good, the moral, and the heroic -- both then and now. Eric is a prolific storyteller that weaves connections between the visions of our forefathers and how we, as a county, continue to be looked upon by the rest of world as the ones who always will come to the rescue. I teach history. I found myself cheering at finding new material to present to my students and creative ways to help them examine the honorable in who we were and who continue to be. Media sources of all sorts bombard our kids with messages of what selfish xenophobes Americans are. In the chapter Venerating Our Heroes, Eric states that one of the very reasons he wrote this book was that "...by ceasing to tell these mythic and heroic stories of our history, we had in fact lost touch with ourselves..." He continues, "We are more than political ideas. We are a people who live those ideas out in common." I began to create curriculum that encourages my students to research and write some of those very stories: Lessons from American Heroes. Another thoughtful application from the chapter The Idea of America, is to have students research some of the benevolent organizations founded here in America and how they are reaching around the world to bring aid and comfort. I will ask the question, how have we, as a nation, promoted that which is charitable? Finally, Eric challenges us to look at the morality of our leaders. This is where I can freely admit to being extremely cynical over my lifetime — one that has been filled with leaders whose grab for greed and power has only been equalled by their sexual improprieties. Never was there a more important plea than his call for "leaders who themselves love the country and the freedoms of this country more than they love themselves and their own career or reputations or 'legacies'." (p. 153) As we continue our self examination of who "we the people" really are in the light of the of ever-present violence and hate that permeates this world, If You Can Keep It offers a reassuring hope that we so desperately need at this time.

Recipient of gift was pleased.

This is a warning that we Americans should pay attention to.