(Photo by Selma Komisky)
Amazing Grace: Beyond the Hymn
By Daniel Daugherty
Chances are, you’ve probably heard this song before.
“Amazing Grace/ how sweet the sound/
That saved a wretch like me/
I once was lost/ but now am found/
Was blind but now I see/”
It is one of the most well-known hymns in the world, as you would expect. It’s reach on the world, Christian and secular, over the past 250 years has changed so many lives. And its story begins with a captain of slave ships.
Yep, that’s right. A slaver wrote the most popular hymn in Christian faith.
John Newton joined the British Royal Navy at a young age after being forced into recruitment. From there, he worked on slave ships and was a part of the slave trade in West Africa. He was abandoned by the ship he was working on in 1745 and eventually became a slave himself to the Sherbro people he himself had been trading.
Newton was rescued in 1748 and returned back to England on a merchant ship. While off the coast of Ireland, a storm started to cause the ship to almost sink into the ocean. Newton, an atheist at the time, began to pray to God, asking for mercy and that the ship would stay afloat. Afterwards, the storm began to die down. Once back on shore, he started to read the Bible and Christian literature, and on March 10, 1748, he vowed to stop drinking, gambling, and using profanity.
This is where there is a “But” in our story. While he quit drinking, gambling, etc., he continued to work in the slave trade as captain and first mate until 1754. Later, Newton said, “I consider this as the beginning of my return to God, or rather of his return to me, but I cannot consider myself to have been a believer, in the full sense of the word, till a considerable time afterwards.[1]” In 1764, he was ordained to be a priest in the Anglican church, working in the village of Olney for many years. At this time, he also began to write hymns.
Okay, now that we have set up our background, let’s talk hymns. If you haven’t guessed already, Amazing Grace was written by John Newton describing his life’s path. How he once was lost and in a dark place, to be found by God and used for his purpose. In 1773, Newton wrote the words of Amazing Grace to illustrate his sermon on New Year’s Day. It was later published in his hymnal, Olney Hymns, but was not a very well-known song outside of England until the early 19th century in the United States during the Second Great Awakening. It is said now that the song in performed and sung about 10 million time annually[2].
To this day, Amazing Grace is still a part of worldwide culture, being used in memorials and being recorded and sung by artists such as Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin. Many movies have even included it, such as Coal Miner’s Daughter and Star Trek II. It has become a hope song when times are hard for people. It brings us together. And it makes us think about ourselves, and how we can be found and saved. How we can be freed from whatever the world throws our way. That’s what happened for John Newton. From a hardened atheist to influential Christian. A slave and slaver turned priest and hymn writer, all by God’s amazing grace.
[1] Out of the Depths, by John Newton and Dennis R. Hillman, Kregel Publications, 2003.
[2] Quote by Jonathan Atiken, Newton biographer and former British MP
To this day, Amazing Grace is still a part of worldwide culture, being used in memorials and being recorded and sung by artists such as Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin. Many movies have even included it, such as Coal Miner’s Daughter and Star Trek II. It has become a hope song when times are hard for people. It brings us together. And it makes us think about ourselves, and how we can be found and saved. How we can be freed from whatever the world throws our way. That’s what happened for John Newton. From a hardened atheist to influential Christian. A slave and slaver turned priest and hymn writer, all by God’s amazing grace.
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