A Patriot’s Take On The American Revolution

 Richard Kirk - American Thinker

 ". . .  those complaints are miniscule compared to the insight achieved by looking at the American Revolution, as Metaxas does, through the eyes of patriots like Washington and John Adams and not through the eyes of a Marxist like Howard Zinn " . . .

Eric Metaxas, Amazon

"History isn’t written by “the winners.”  It’s written by historians and persons of letters.  Thus, what we know about the past depends on the interests and biases of those who compose treatises about the subject.  Eric Metaxas’s number one best seller, Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World, provides in its subtitle an unambiguous declaration of the author’s conclusion about events in colonial America that are covered in this scrupulously researched book.  Upon finishing its nearly 600 densely packed pages, most readers will likely wonder why so many things delineated therein were neglected or distorted by prior historians.

"Foremost among those distortions is the assertion that most of America’s founders were deists who rejected the idea of God’s post-creation activity in human affairs.  As Metaxas clearly shows via the words of various patriots, especially John Adams and George Washington, the notion of God’s “providential” acts on behalf of the emergent nation was ubiquitous, a faith indissolubly linked to its adherence to biblical principles as articulated by ministers like George Whitefield.  These “no King but Jesus” convictions spread by the ministerial “Black Robe Regiment” were often derided by British elites who denigrated colonials as, in today’s parlance, bible-bangers.  A practical consequence of this gulf between British and colonial morals is illustrated by the humane treatment Americans typically provided captured troops versus the wretched fate most  patriot soldiers faced who fell into British hands, an estimated 10,000 of whom died in captivity, outpacing the “less than 7,000” killed in combat.

"Metaxas further illustrates the decadence of Britain’s leadership under George III by providing detailed descriptions of gatherings in England by prominent members of the Hellfire Club who not only embraced hedonism but even mocked Christian beliefs.  Later the author devotes several pages to General William Howe’s lavish farewell party in Philadelphia.  By contrast, Washington is shown stressing the importance of discipline and moral conduct for himself and his troops in view of their “sacred” cause, a cause for which colonials officially beseeched God’s help by declaring days of fasting, prayer, and thanksgiving." . . .

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Richard Kirk is a freelance writer and retired teacher living in Southern California.  His book Moral Illiteracy: “Who’s to Say?” is also available on Kindle , as is his book Poetry with a Moral Edge.