Bible Books: How Sweet the Sound

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I’ve always been a sucker for a good, old-fashioned tale of redemption. Perhaps that’s why the story of the 18th-century British clergyman John Newton appeals to me so much. The son of a prosperous British merchant and sea captain, Newton had what some people might refer to as a troubled youth. By the time he reached his early 20s, he’d been fired from numerous jobs, kicked out of the British navy for insubordination (twice) and taken up the unsavory life of a slave trader. He seemed particularly suited to this last profession, since it gave him plenty of time for drinking, swearing and defiling native women.

But all of that changed one night in 1748, when Newton’s ship was caught in a terrible storm in the middle of the Atlantic. As he stood on the deck of the foundering boat, with the water rising all around him, he was suddenly seized by a powerful sense of God’s presence. He vowed that if he survived the tempest, he would embrace Christianity and become a better man.

According to popular tradition, the sinful young Englishman was so shaken by his stormy epiphany that he instantly turned his ship around, returned the slaves to their homes in Africa, and then headed back to England, where he tried to describe his religious awakening in a hymn. It began with the simple, but unforgettable words: “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me …”

The story of John Newton’s remarkable spiritual transformation, and the equally remarkable song it produced, are the dual subjects of Steve Turner’s engaging new book: Amazing Grace: The Story of America’s Most Beloved Song.

In the first half of the book, entitled simply “Creation,” Turner provides a gripping account of Newton’s life. Drawing on exhaustive archival research, Turner demonstrates that Newton’s spiritual rebirth was a much longer and more complicated process than tradition tells us. While the young Englishman did begin seriously studying the Bible and Calvinist theology in the wake of his conversion experience, it was another three years before he decided to abandon his career as a slave-trader. A decade after that he decided to seek ordination. Newton did not begin writing inspirational hymns like “Amazing Grace” for his congregation until he was well into his forties, and he only became known as an anti-slavery advocate in the final years of life.

Turner meticulously recreates Newton’s slow road to salvation by tracing the many spiritual and intellectual influences that shaped his thinking. He deftly describes the key religious controversies of the day and provides lively, engaging portraits of Newton’s closest friends and mentors, including such colorful figures as the suicidal poet William Cowper (with whom Newton wrote many of his hymns) and the dynamic liberal politician William Wilberforce (who first convinced Newton to publicly adopt the abolitionist cause and for whom one of the oldest African American colleges in America is named). Still, nothing in the first half of Turner’s book quite rivals his account of Newton’s life-altering “shipboard crisis.” Turner’s description of the sinking ship and its frantic crew is so vivid and dramatic, it might have been pulled from pages of a Horatio Hornblower novel, and, after reading it, it is easy to see why John Newton felt forever changed by this experience.

Turner’s biography of Newton sets the stage for the second half of his book, entitled “Dissemination.” Here, in a series of fast-moving and informative essays, the author examines how “Amazing Grace” gradually evolved from an obscure Anglican hymn into one of America’s most beloved folk songs. According to Turner, the lyrics of the hymn 059were probably introduced in this country during the revival meetings of the Second Great Awakening (a Protestant evangelical movement that swept across America from 1790 to 1840), and they were set to their now familiar tune in William Walker’s popular 1835 hymnal, Southern Harmony. Throughout the 1800s, the hymn’s inspirational lyrics and simple, haunting melody made it a popular choice for singing schools and rural congregations (especially in the South); but the song still remained unknown to most Americans until the last century, when it was “rediscovered” and championed by an odd assortment of civil rights activists, funeral directors and professional musicians.

The high point of the 230-year-old Calvinist hymn’s career may have come in 1970, when the popular folk singer Judy Collins released a cover of it on her hit album Whales and Nightingales. Collins’s haunting a capella rendition of “Amazing Grace” eventually reached number 15 on the U.S. pop charts, and it inspired numerous rock stars (including Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin and Rod Stewart) to record their own versions of the song.

Today, various music polls indicate that “Amazing Grace” is still the nation’s most popular hymn. But, Turner argues, it is also much more than that. Over time, the song has become a secular icon of hope and redemption—one that can be embraced by all Americans who believe in fresh starts, whether they are devout Christians like the gospel diva Mahalia Jackson or iconoclastic folk singers like Arlo Guthrie or Pete Seeger.

A music writer by trade, author Turner occasionally lingers a bit too long on arcane details of musicology, and he has an unfortunate tendency to namedrop about his friendships with rock stars. For the most part, however, Turner makes his case for the importance of “Amazing Grace” with considerable style, energy and erudition, and it’s hard to resist his enthusiasm. By the end of this 250-page musical odyssey, I was certainly itching to go out and find some of the recordings listed in the book. I also found myself wondering, along with Turner, how John Newton might feel if he could somehow hear his humble, reverential words still being sung today, by every kind of person, in every corner of this distant land. Would he resent our national misappropriation and secularization of his message? Or would he, as Turner suggests, interpret his song’s success as further evidence of God’s wonderful and mysterious ways? Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound indeed!

I’ve always been a sucker for a good, old-fashioned tale of redemption. Perhaps that’s why the story of the 18th-century British clergyman John Newton appeals to me so much. The son of a prosperous British merchant and sea captain, Newton had what some people might refer to as a troubled youth. By the time he reached his early 20s, he’d been fired from numerous jobs, kicked out of the British navy for insubordination (twice) and taken up the unsavory life of a slave trader. He seemed particularly suited to this last profession, since it gave him plenty of time […]