You've seen the Movie, Amazing Grace, now hear the rest of the story... S. Michael Craven and the Center for Christ & Culture are pleased to offer this one-time event featuring our good friend, Eric Metaxas, the acclaimed author of Amazing the Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery. Where: Trinity Presbyterian Church - Plano, TX MAP IT When: Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. Learn about the amazing life of William Wilberforce and his 26-year battle to abolish the intractable British slave trade. Listen as Eric explains the astonishing parallels between 18th century Great Britain---a culture immersed in immorality despite its public veneer of Christianity---and 21st century America. There is perhaps a no more inspiring story relevant to our times!   Free child care is available for those 4 and under but you must call 972-335-3844 to make arrangements.

About Eric: 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 Albanian, Portuguese, Spanish, Korean, and Macedonian. Eric Metaxas was born in New York City in 1963. He grew up in Danbury, Connecticut, attending the public schools there, and graduated from Yale University. Metaxas' humor writing was first published in the Atlantic Monthly, and has appeared in The New York Times. Woody Allen has called these pieces "quite funny."   Eric's book and movie reviews, essays, and poetry have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Christianity Today, National Review Online, Beliefnet, and First Things.  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 Dr. Francis Collins, Sir John Polkinghorne, Baroness Caroline Cox, Dana Gioia, Os Guinness and Peter Kreeft, and which was mentioned in a front-page story in The New York Times. 

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 Rick Warren have made him much sought after as an emcee and moderator. 

He has moderated debates with Bishop Spong and President Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright; and has spoken at the White House, on Capitol Hill, at West Point, Yale, Cornell, Princeton, and many other venues, and was this past year the featured speaker at the Lousiana Governor's Prayer Breakfast in Baton Rouge. In 2007 he was made an Honorary Fellow of the prestigious British-American Project, the only person ever to have been afforded this privilege.

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."); Rudy Giuliani ("better than the movie!"), 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, and a third book in the series ("The Jesus Edition") will be published by Regal in 2010.