Hope for the Future

Somewhere between the first drive and settling in at the clubhouse, Golf becomes more than just a game Lulu Lemon golf gear is built for the full range of your day white layers as you head to early tea times Flexible fits move naturally with your swing Our fabrics workick sweat and block UVs for hours in the sun And refined cuts carry you well into the nineteenth pole Shop golf gear in stores and online at Wulemon. com But then they need a guy to write the Declar of Indepeence. Everybody says it should be John Adams. And John Adams humbly and brilliantly says, no, it should be a Virginian. And number two, it should be Jefferson who has a away with words. We need somebody who can elevate it somewhat. And that's what Jefferson does. And for writing a few beautiful sentences or two, he's in this pantheon I think he's a little he's a little overrated for sure Hey everyone, it's Andrew Clavan with this week's interview with Eric Mataxis. And one of the many things I hate about Eric is that he writes exceptionally well. I mean, I just I hate to see it. and he has written a new book called Revolution The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of. The world And the thing I love about Eric's writing and secretly despise is that he takes incredibly complex events and ideas and makes them so simple that even I can occasionally understand them. his biography of Dietrich Bonhoffer, huge bestseller was great. But this is an important book. Revolution the Birth of the greatreatest Nation in the history of the world. Eric, It's great to see you how you doing Well, I hate you write back because I read your books. and I love the fact that you make it seem like, yes, I write my books for simpletons like Andrew Clayton. You know what I mean? They're not that bright, but you got you gott to try to talk to them on their level. And that's really my goal in this and all my books. No, but your books I've said this to you, I've said it publicly. You writing, there are very few writers, hardly any that I just go, wow. how did he do that? I mean, honestly, So to hear any praise from you Even in the form of bitter hatred. I live for this. That's the only kind of praise I have, but thank you very. No, you know, but it it's a gift to be able to take these incredibly complex ideas and make it so people can understand without without cutting the edges off them you actually explain No, I I will admit that it is a gift because it's not something that I have worked at. It's just I have an instinct I mean, listen, this happens, you know, if my wife and I are having dinner with with someone and she starts to tell a story and I can't shut up I you knowupt like, No, no, you got to, you know, because I want it to be framed for the maximum effect or so that the people really get the point. And I do feel like I have a kind of a vicious instinct for that And it happens to me over and over when I write books and it happened to me with this book over and over the Revolution book I'm talking about where I feel, I mean the classic case is when I we didn't to get into this, but when I was delving into the Boston Tea Party, why did this happen? Because you read about it and they kind of explain it, but I realized that I'm not really getting it And I have to kind of dig and dig and dig and dig it happen with the Bonhover. it's like I sort of don' I don't get it well enough to teach it, right? If you want to really want to know something, you know, teach it, then you'll force yourself to really understand it. And that happens that happens to me and it did happen in the writing of this book. it's Very gratifying if somebody like you appreciates that. So thank you. Well, really it's a really good read, but it's also the subtitle it's called Revolution. The subtitle is The birth of the greatreatest Nation in the history of the world. Very aggressive, Eric. I mean, that's a little nationalist. L you must be one of those you know MAGA guys or something, but it actually points w you wrote the book, I would bet You know, it's a funny thing Andrew, seriously, I didn't want it to have a title like that Then I thought You know, it's like it's like I'm writ a biraphy of Thomas Edison and I don't want Edison to be in the title. You're going to have a problem like because that's kind of the point here. The story of of of how America comes into being, what do you what do you call it? What do you what do you call America There is the whole point is it is the greatest nation in the history of the world. It doesn't mean that we're any better than anyone else. except the Dutch and the French whom I hate. just kidding. We are the same. Every human being on the planet is the same. and so Americans are no better, but our form of government And this nation unlike anything in the history of the world That's a simple fact. I don't I don't say it with any uh false pride, I feel I say with humility. why do we get to live here? Why do we have the privilege of living in this nation? Well, the least we can do with this privilege we've been given is try to share these ideas with the rest of the world or try to share these ideas with those Americans that don't know this stuff because this is stunning in world history and we ought to know that it's stunning and we ought to understand it. And I think that telling the story of the revolution, which was my basic goal is just to tell the story of what happened two hundred fifty years ago, the Revolution. in the course of that kinds of other stuff came up that I did not expect to see or whatever. So I had no angle on it. I just wanted to tell the story straight. But in the course of the research, so much stuff kind of hit me, I thought, wow, this is we kind of need to know this. This is not unimportant. Let's put it that way. You know what There's an old expression well begun as half done. and it really is it actually is kind of deeply true that the beginning of something, the beginning of your life, your childhood, imprints the pattern that is going to play out for the rest of the time. So what was it that made this such a great country, such an amazing country unlike any other really What was it that happened at the begin You know, I know that you used to you're used to spewing Jew hatred on this program, but I'm going I'm going to surprise you by by telling you that what the founders were doing and they knew it. was they were returning to the Sinai covenant. They were basically saying in the history of the world People never govern themselves without a king except in Israel, in the wilderness at Sinai, they leave Pharaoh They get out from under from bondage, from slavery, and they are free in the wilderness and they look to God as their king. And until they foolishly choose Saul a few centuries later They have no king but God. He is their king. And in first Samuel, Samuel says this to them, you know, no, you wanted a king. You had a king. It was the Lord That is the idea of Samuel Adams and John Adams and all of these men, they said We are not going to have an earthly king But we're not going to go the route of the stupid French revolution where we kill the king and then we get an emperor dictator and a bloodbath. No, we would like this to succeed and it actually does succeed. Why? Because they replace an earthly king with God And they don't do that in a way that forces everyone to become a Christian. They just say, this is what we're doing and it's free and you can reject this. and it's a covenant It it's It's the covenantal theology of the Old Testament that if we behave, if we are righteous, God will bless us. and if we're not, He won't They understood this And it really becomes so clear to me. and then this happens every time I read a book, and then it becomes so clear to me that I'm thinking, how did I not see this before? And then how is it that nobody else seems to see this? now I've got to tell everybody that I can buttonhole on the street because this is very important. This is the story of how America comes into being. been, you know, we have been told the bodlerized, secularized French Elightenment deist version of this, which is a joke, a preposterous joke and not merely a joke, but a vile lie. You cannot get the kind of liberty we have without God, period. That's it. And if you can, I'd like you to tell me how because it doesn't seem possible. Every other attempt ends in either chaos or ends in a nightmare. I mean, the Gulleg arrchipelago is the ending of the Bolshevik revolution. The bloodbath of the French terror and then the Napoleon, that's how the French Revolution ends. I mean, if you push God out you're not it's not going to end well. But these men had the profound wisdom to know that if we have God at the center, we may succeed and He may bless us. I mean That's a crazy story, but it's true. And how come most of us don't know it? I mean, it seems to me so clear from the fact that it ought to be taught in schools, even if you don't like it, this is what those guys believed. We ought to do them the honor at least of explaining what it was that they believed in doing what they were doing. So that was going to be my next question All my life, I've heard well, there were Dists, you know, they weren't really doing this. They were very much against having, you know, the wall between the state and faith, which was never anywhere wr now except in a letter somewhere. If I had the founders, the important founders sitting around me and we were interviewing them, is that what they would say? I mean, as you were researching Revolution, did you think is that what you found That's kind of what I'm saying is that we have been we've been taught this twisted version of it, this propagandistic Um . I mean, you know, it' it's the the The term is it's a lie. and I guess when you realize the scope of the lie, it is vile that that What is true would be twisted and twisted plausibly enough that all kinds of people would believe it. It's preposterous. I mean, Washington was an outrageous Christian. I mean, I don't know. he over and over talks about the hand of Providence directing their fate during the revolution. I mean, and on and on, things that he says Dist Dists don't talk like that. It's ridiculous. That's just Washington. The separation of church and state, I mean, that was in a letter that Jefferson writes to the Danbury Baptist. So that's my hometown, Danbury, Connecticut In the letter, the whole point he's making is The state has no right to tell churches How to behave, what to believe, what the church needs to keep its hands away The state needs to keep its hands off of the church, which is the opposite of what the Warren Court and others have twisted this in our lifetimes to make it sound like we're supposed to have a secular culture and a secular government. that couldn't be farther from the truth. I mean, and the reason it's a vile lie is because there's so many facts that are against it. It's not like, o, we got confused. I mean, one of the central scenes in my book is where Samuel Adams I mean, who is the father of the revolution. He gives a speech On the day before they sign what's called the engrossed version of the decelarations. that's august second seventeen seventy six, they're going to sign it. This is their death warrant. they're trembling. They know this is a moment of the greatest moment momentousness, gravity And the day before Samuel Adams, the father of Re giv a speech, in the speech, he says, We have this day restored the sovereign Um to whom only men ought to be obedient. I mean, he's saying we are consciously, explicitly putting God in the place of an earthly king. We're putting God in the place of the state We are fully acknowledging our liberties come from him and government exists to protect those liberties. It couldn't be more clear, explicit So the idea that some people would somehow twist this because they simply don't like the idea of God. and so they want to find some secularist gloss on the story It' it's ugly. It's really ugly that people would do that. And again, in the course of writing the book, I was not as aware of of this, uh Until I'm doing the research, I'm thinking, this is This narrative is everywhere the true narrative. How can you miss this? They're all just overtly explicitly religious M Almost every single one of them. That's what's so funny to me. It's like we kind of like, Oh, there's kind of a handful of a few Christians. That's complete nonsense. It's like there were everywhere you look, Henry Knox is writing letters to his wife quoting the scriptures and saying what he read in the Bible that morning and Washington, all these players So the idea that you can somehow get these liberties Without that It's just, it's crazy and the facts argue against it. So I didn't set out my book to prove that point. I just really wanted to kind of have a galloping telling of the stories, you know, go go from eighteen six seventeen sixty three to seventeen eighty three and just tell all the stories. But in the course of that these things came out more and more and more and more. I mean, it was it was astonishing to me. and I guess that relates also to the people kept saying, you have an angle on. I said, I have no angle I just want to tell the story. But in the course telling the story, the the u The immorality of the British elites, how wicked and cruel and civ and cynical and corrupt they were, that was that culture versus the culture of the American colonists who were mostly highest Christians. I mean, it's really like, you know, Hollywood elites going to war with town in Oklahoma. That's really what we're talking about. it's And it's everywhere I looked and I thought, I never heard this before, but this is the case. And then the way the British prosecuted the war, incredible cruelty, sadistic cruelty toward their enemies, Americans surrendering and they would bayet them to death. So you really get a picture of good and evil in a way that I had never heard this, Andrew. I simply never heard this and the more I looked at it the thought Wow, this is radically different cultures radically different cultures. and you know, it goes on from there, but it's kind of I was frankly amazed. I didn't expect to find it at all much less so clear Hey, remember when you were younger and you could survive on four hours of sleep, caffeine and frozen pizza and somehow still function? at a certain point that stopped working, didn't it? Honestly, this time of year makes sleep even harder for a lot of people. Summer travel starts, bedtimes drift later, everybody's routine becomes slightly chaotic for school break, which is why, the quality of your sleep setup Dart mattering a lot more than people think. That's one reason Helix has become such a popular mattress brand. Helix makes mattresses tailored to different sleep styles and preferences because not everybody sleeps the same way. Some people sleep hot, some need extra support, some toss and turn constantly. Some, like me, just never sleep. But that's why I love Helix even more than most people because I get to experience Helix all night long. I get to lie there thinking, wow, I'm glad I'm not asleep because this is so comfortable. One of the underrated things about a really good mattress is that you stop thinking about these things. You just sleep. Helix also has more than twenty different mattress models so people can actually find something tailored to how they sleep instead of just buying one generic mattress and hoping for the best. And according to Helix, a study they ran We found that eighty two percent of participants saw an increase in deep sleep after switching to a Helix mattress. The mattress ships directly to your door, there's one hundred twenty night sleep trial and it comes with a limited lifetime warranty. Bea at the end of the day, better sleep really does improve almost every other aspect of your life. so I've heard. Go to helelixleep dot com slash claven for twenty seven percent off sitewide. That's helelixleep dot com slash clven twenty seven percent off sitewide. makeake sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you helixleep dot com slash Caven, but you have to know how to spell it. Try and find I'll tell youa. it's KLA VAM. Did they have one of the things when I look back at the story of the Revolution, Ag, we're talking to Eric Mataxis about his new book, Revolution, The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World One of the things when I look back at this revolution is people who were in a single room You know, I'm very always very slow to say, well, God did this or God did that, But how do you get those people? the quality of those thinkers in a single room? England had an empire. They could not have done it. They could not have collected the people who were in, you know, what was essentially this a sliver of this continent and filled a room with you know, Adams and Washington and Jefferson and not, you know, thinkers, but also a guy like Washington who was the man of the moment, the only person who could have who would have handed his sword over when the Revolution was over, who would have handed power. I mean Besides Jesus and the temptations of the desert, who else has ever done that at that spectacular level? Were they aware of that? Did they have a sense that They've been touched by something You know, that's a good question and u I, u I don't know. that that's interesting. I think you do get u I mean, some of the things that Thomas Paine writes, he seems to get like, you know, not since the days of Noah have we been able to remake the world again. This is this is an epic in human history. I think John Adams really gets that. I mean, he ends up being other than Washington, he's the hero of the story. And I think that he ought to be a thousand times more famous than Jefferson. I mean, honestly and truly, he is amazing. And I think he sees this and has a sense of that Um, but, you know, I think sometimes God really does intervene in human history. and this is an example of that. I mean, how do you explain the birth of a George Washington into the world? I mean, who is this guy? This guy is a singular figure. There's no close second. He's just made for this moment I think in some ways, Donald Trump is that for today. I mean, how do you make him up? Wh Who is this guy who has this sort of, you know, hutzpa to to dare to say and do this kind of stuff at a time when you kind of need a warrior like that. you know, peoplee say a friend of mine says, we need a Lincoln. It's like I think right now we need a Trump because of what we're facing I think at the time of Washington, we needed a Washington. Where do you find a Washington? There's no such thing except that guy and he reluctantly says, okay, I mean, it really is genuinely amazing. So you're right to marvel at this, you know, assemblage. it is amazing. I mean, you could say that Part of it comes out of that culture. I mean this is a Reformation Puritan culture that comes across an ocean, you know, it's self selecting. These were the people that cared enough about this to risk their lives and these are their descendants, and they've been steeped in these ideas. Um, but It is really If it's not miraculous, it's at least very, very amazing that here they are and they rise to this moment so beautifully So you mentioned Jefferson and he is somebody who always he kind of sticks in my crawl a little bit. mean brilliant writer, a brilliant man and an incredibly accomplished man But something happens to him. and when you were talking about the religion of the founders, he's the guy who cut out pages from the gospels to make it more in keeping with his kind of materialistic view Is he did you come away from researching this book thinking less of him or did you think no he had a place in the puzzle as well I never thought particularly much of Jefferson. it's not because I thought much of him and then didn't like him. I just he plays virtually no role in the revolution. I mean, he's on hand uh for You know, when they decide we need to put in a document what it is that we're doing. The document doesn't make them do it. It's kind of like, know, giving the credit Who printed that birth certificate? It's amazing. It's like, Well, the mother is here. She was in a labor for eighteen hours. She's the one you really should be talking to. John Adams is the architect of independence, but then they need a guy to write the Declaration of Independence. Everybody says it should be John Adams. and John Adams humbly and brilliantly says, no, it should be a Virginian And number two, it should be Jefferson who has a away with words, this could use that. Otherwise it'll be legalistic boilerplate. We need somebody who can elevate it somewhat. And that's what Jefferson does. And for the for writing a few beautiful sentences or two you know, he's in this pantheon. so I think he's a little he's a little overrated for sure because there's not an original idea in the document. All this stuff, everybody knew this. They just needed somebody to kind of put it down and, you know, he does that and he comes up. But even the sentence is kind of funny. The sentence, we hold these truths to be self evident Clause is not Jefferson. Jefferson writes, we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable And the cananny Yankee Benjamin Franklin comes in and goes, Yeah nope and he crosses it out and he puts self evident because self evident somehow poetically and in other ways is right So so again, it's not to denigrate Jefferson, but I mean, I just think he's been overrated greatly. I mean the man behind independence is John Adams. This is the man who made that happen working behind the scenes and and I think that You know, Jeff the other thing too is that th the You know, I you love Washington And I can't help loving John Adams. And I find it odd that Jefferson was very much at odds with Washington and with John Adams. And I thought the two people that I adore, Jefferson was, you know not on speaking terms with them. It's a strange It's kind of a strange thing. And then of course Washington takes the secularist bait like Thomas Payne and he kind of thinks, oh, we can do this in France. you know, it's like, well, no, once you push God out, you ain't going to do it. And if you don't believe me stick around for a couple of years, you'll see it won't work and it didn't work. So I don't know. I haven't studied Jefferson enough to say much more than that, But Adams to me is a giant. He deserves to be much more much more known, dramatically, much more known than Jefferson. So the book is called Revolution. I assume you're telling the story of the whole war and not just the philosophy of it The Yes, I mean, originally I was just kind of telling the story of the war. The revolution starting seventeen seventy five. Then I thought, oh, well, I've got to, you know, say what leads up to that. And the more research I did, the more I thought, wow. And then I find the quote by John Adams that there was a revolution before the revolution. In otherds before Lexington cononquered, there was a revolution. And so that starts, you know, roughly seventeen sixty three or even before that where the British start to, you know, push it. They start start to really decide like, well, we we're going to tax these Americans. We need to assert our authority as this great emmpire that we are now. and They ought't have done that. They should have left well enough alone, but they stupidly thought they could do that. and they encouountnter these Americans that actually have this crazy thing called principles. They actually believe in this stuff. And the cynical British couldn't even imagine that anybody would really believe these principles. And so they really were cynical and corrupt, you know, not completely but largely And so so the story really starts, you know about when King George takes the throne and, you know, all the stuff that happens that leads up to Lexington in Concord, which is fascinating. I mean, the stamp act That was its own wow. I mean, what a story because it's it's what brings these two things into conflict is these principles that these Americans had, again, largely Christians with this idea that our rights come from God, we govern ourselves and the British that said, e, not so much. We've got the power shut up and pay. And basically that is, you know, it just goes on from there and it kind of escalates and escalates and whipsaws. and it's just there's a lot of stories that lead up to Lexington and Concord. But then of course, I tell the story of the war. So it starts roughly seventeen sixty three and ends seventeen eighty three with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. So it's the whole thing And that was my goal again, just to tell the whole story so that anybody could, you know, in one book, like here here's how it happened, hereere's what happened And you know, it could have been twelve hundred pages, but I boiled it down to a slim six hundred. That's not actually bad to tell that much story. So the thing the book is subtitled The birth of the greatreatest Nation in the history of the world, but you're fighting this war against greatest empire on Eth Why We win, whyy do the Americans win that war Well that's what's so fascinating is that as I was doing the research, more and more, I saw I had never seen this before and this is not taught. and that's, you know part of I hope my book can correct that because I saw that the British really were wicked. And in other words, there was a cynicism and a corruption And the way they fought the war was so despicable. It's like the Japanese or the Nazis in World War two They were sadistic and cruel. I mean, the Americans would surrender and they would bayonet them to death. I mean, there's a lot of that. The way they treated when they imprisoned them. they imprisoned them. It was a virtual death sentence. That's how horrifying the prisons were, that that ten thousand prisoners died. I mean, imagine that's more than were killed on the battlefield. ten thousand. So so the British were really you know, I'm repeating myself, but corrupt and cynical in the way they they fought the war. And I noticed the first thing that made me kind of tip me off to that narrative was When I realized that General Howe, who's the, you know, the equivalent of George Washington on their side He has a mistress So he's married in England, but when he comes over here, he has a mistress and everyone knows he has a mistress. It's not some hidden thing that they're ashamed of Everybody would have a mistress if they could and he does and let him enjoy his life at the gaming tables and the whatever. And you think, who are these people? Who are these people? These are wealthy U corrupt cynical and in many cases broken goal And the Americans are so dramatically different when I think of George Washington, his tremendous character staggering character. and John Adams and so many others, these heroes, Samuel Adams and Dr. Joseph Warren and Patrick Henry and Henry Knox. and This is a pantheon of great men who are so different from the British elites that it is pretty astonishing. I really thought, if you need to know who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. So over and over again, I kept having the thought that, well, of course the Americans won because God was actually on their side. And not only do they not fight differently than the British they make a point, a conscious point where Washington you know threatens his officers that you will never stoop to fight the way the British do. You will never treat your prisoners the way the British do. We We answer to a higher authority You know, it's like the old. Hebrew National commercial. Do you remember that? You're old enough to remember that When we answer to a higher authority. We're not going to fight that way. We answer to a higher authority and we're going to fight differently and What that means is that we're actually and this is crazy, we're actually going to trust God with the results. We're going to do the right thing. and we believe if we honor God in this covenantal relationship, if we're righteous, He will bless us. Washington says this over and over and over. That's George Washington, the guy they say he is a deist Dass don't talk like that. It's like hilarious. It really is you know, it's kind of like if you're watching a movie and unless it's kind of some like, you know bitter, uh tragic Avant Garde film. you kind of know who are the good guys and the bad guys. you know the good guys win. you just know you can smell it. You can feel it. and that's to me the story of the Revolution, that even at its darkest and there are many dark, dark moments you know, Washington and others they just had a sense and uh someome of them articulated it Samuel Adams, I think at a really bleak moment in seventeen seventy seven when when the the The Congress has, you know, had to like escape from Philadelphia because the British took over Philadelphia and it's just looking like it's looking bad and they're go, you know, cowering or whatever. And Samuel Adams gives this speech And he says good tidings will soon arrive. that we have put our trust in God and we have done And think how does he know good tidings will arrive? But he knows prophetically that if we do this, God will honor us. and two weeks later they get the news of the smashing victory at Saratoga. And in fact, everything changes. It's, you know, it's like a story you'd make up except it's true. So it's, uh, o me, it's kind of beautiful to see that, the poetry of the good versus evil So I'm just about out of time, so I'm going to ask you my most difficult question for last. you do this deep dive T to write this book Reolion, the birth of the greatest nation in the history the world and You come back to the present Has your view of what's happening now deep in changed,, been transformed Um N not especially. I mean, I think I thought what I think now before, but it has It just helped me to see it more clearly, I guess, that God intervenes in human history. and even Ben Franklin, the one they want to, you know, haul out, Oh, he's a deist. No, not at the end of his life, he's no deist. He has been convinced that God acts in human history and that an empire cannot rise without his aid That's beenen Franklin. So so they keep shoving this secularist narrative down our throats and Ken Burns's PBS documentary does it and everybody seems to do it. It's just wrong and we need to know that it's wrong U, and we need to know that Because God acts in human history, we can have hope that that if we do the right thing, he's with us and we put the results in his hand that doesn't guarantee us anything, but I am genuinely hopeful about the United States because of the story of the Revolution and how hopeless it was so often genuinely hopeless. We don't just say that because we know how it ended. It's really, it really was. They put their faith in God and I think there are many Americans that now put their faith in God and that are going to do the right thing no matter what. So I am genuinely very hopeful, but it doesn't mean that you're not in a war You know, we're in an existential battle with dark forces But God has called us to the battle. If God called us to the battle, our job is to do what He called us to do, which is to fight and to pray and to fight his way, not our way That to me, that's the story of the revolution and I didn't know it frankly, Andrew. And so, but to know it and to see it with the With the clarity that I now do, it does give me hope. Yeah Great answer. Guest is Eric Mataxis, a wonderful writer who has turned that talent to telling the story of how our country began. The book is Revolution, the Birth of the greatreatest nation in the history of the world. Eric always love talking to you. It's great to see you. Thank you for coming on. I appreciate it My privilege, thank you. Another one of we few, we happy few who understand what culture is about and what the culture needs Eric is just he really is a good writer and he really does take these big topics, complicated topics and give them to us in a way that we can understand without losing their complexity, which is just a real talent. Book A againain, Revolution the Birth of the greatreatest Nation in the history of the world. So you kind of know where he's coming from, Also he's not hiding it Great stuff. I will be away this Friday, but I will come back the Friday after for my vacation. I will see you then on the Andrew Clayin Show