A few good men

Seven Men: And the Secret of Their Greatness
Eric Metaxas
Thomas Nelson, 2013 

Here’s a book that teases as much as it inspires. It drives you to ask: Whom would I include in my Top Seven (and why)? It’s a bit like those end-of-year reviews in newspapers and magazines in which staff editors list the most prominent movies, books, and headline makers of the year.

But this one is different. God features on almost every page. It’s the result of tireless research by Eric Metaxas, who has called his book Seven Men: And the Secret of Their Greatness (Thomas Nelson, 2013). They include George Washington (1732–99), William Wilberforce (1759–1833), Eric Liddell (1902–45), Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–45), Jackie Robinson (1919–72), Pope John Paul II (1920–2005), and Charles W. Colson (1931–2012).

Metaxas feels strongly that today we live in a world in which all authority is questioned and our appreciation of real leadership—and especially fatherhood—has been badly damaged. He says we have lost a sense of the heroic and of God’s idea of “authentic manhood." He insists that “true strength is always strength given over to God’s purposes.” This calls for selflessness, sometimes surrendering what is ours in the service of others. He believes that all seven men he has profiled have done that in one way or another.

This is no place for naming favorites, but I would suggest that with the London Olympics still in mind, the chapter on Scottish runner Eric Liddell of Chariots of Fire fame will stir many hearts. Metaxas points out that the strength Liddell felt within himself always came from his sure knowledge of God’s love and support: “He didn’t need explanations from God. He simply believed in Him and accepted whatever came.” 

Someone far less known is William Wilberforce, English politician, philanthropist, and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade in the British Empire. He was a man who humbled himself and “entrusted the battle to God.” He read the Scriptures and prayed over these issues and concerns every day (as the 2006 movie Amazing Grace confirmed).

And it’s a Wilberforce for our times who carries the strongest message about transformation—Charles W. “Chuck” Colson, who was at the center of  the Watergate scandal during the Nixon administration in 1973. After the humiliation of his prison sentence, Colson found God and spent the next 40 years ministering to prisoners and their families.

During one of his visits to Boston, Colson spoke to me at length about several of the issues which, years later, Metaxas reflects on in Seven Men. Colson emphasized that there are principles Christians understand well that have got to be shared with young people, especially through mentoring, which the Church is ideally suited to provide. “If not, we’ll be the first generation in American history to be held hostage by our own kids. We cannot afford to lose them.

“The world needs to see the Church being a Church,” he continued. “People need to see that a Christian understanding of reality dignifies the human race, defends human rights and human liberty, and gives a sense of purpose to life. Christians have a wonderful story, and they should tell it boldly” (see Sentinel, March 30, 1998).

In many ways, that rousing call from Colson speaks for every figure profiled in Seven Men. Given more time and pages, one suspects that Metaxas could easily have bumped that up to seventy times seven!