Amazing Grace

  I'm always excited to see a chance to review a biography for Evangelical Press, it's a chance for us to incorporate learning about heroes of the faith into our school.  So, when the Bitesize Biography of John Newton by John Crotts came across the wire, I dove at the chance, not just because of our fondness for biographies, but also because it fit perfectly with our history lessons!  We had just finished up the Matchlock Gun which is set in the French and Indian War when John's biography arrived.  Couldn't have been more perfectly timed since John was born in 1725 just prior to our area of study!

John Newton in later years

  I had never taken the time to read about John Newton before this.  I have sung his song Amazing Grace countless times over the years as a lullaby to our kiddos though:)  I liked the set up of this book.  It began with a timeline & a good brief intro to how God protected and guided John's life until and after his conversion. Boy did he need protection in his early years!  His godly mother died when he was young and his emotionally distant seafaring father left him to his own devices and trying to find his place in the world without a guide, which led to a life pretty much without morals.  Pressed into naval service, he eventually ended up in the slave trade and almost a slave (of sorts) himself.
  The chapters on his life as a slave ship captain and the effect it had on his life were of particular interest to me.  Just last week I had a hit on my Ancestry.com DNA results.  One of the people it connected me to was 65% West African & 35% British Isles (which is the ancestry we shared).  I contacted the person and found a surname we shared - Utterback.  Wow!  I had known that there were a few branches of my family that were slave owners. I had seen even wills that transferred ownership of slaves, some of light skinned, gray eyed slaves through the generations.  But to find an actual person that I was related to as a result of those things that had just been on paper before made it all so real.  What a horrible period in our history when one race considered another so inferior that they treated them so badly.  The consolation that I find especially in my Utterbacks is that they gave up slavery at least in my branch sooner than some. 
  One of the cool things I liked about this book is that Mr. Crotts uses snipits from the song Amazing Grace throughout the book to tie it all together.  I need to go back through and make sure I caught them all:)  Crotts also preps you to look for evidences of how God protected John or guided him through his years a defiance towards Him. 

  The book had an excellent section for other suggested readings, although I wished he would have included a bibliography to cite his sources for this book.  Crotts also mentioned the movie Amazing Grace (2006).  So I had to check it out.  Luckily our little library had it!  It was an excellent movie focusing on William Wilberforce and his efforts to end the slave trade.  Wilberforce became friends with Newton, and Newton helped him try to persuade people to end slavery and also was a spiritual mentor to Wilberforce.  It wasn't until almost 20 years after Newton's death and right at Wilberforce's death that the slave trade was abolished in Britain. What people had been blind to, they could now see.
  Another of the things I enjoyed in this book was that the author took a few John Newton's hymns, most notably Amazing Grace, and dissected them.  It's been on my mind lately how a lot of contemporary Christian music is just "fluff".  These old hymns, and not just Newton's, had substance.  The book put it best, "A hymn is more than a statement of truth.  It stretches the tools of language to express the truth with appropriate passion.  Instead of simply offering the facts about God, a text of Scripture, or Christian experience, hymns express those realities through rhythmic language, often using rhyme, symbols & graphic imagery to help the singers feel the facts.  When musical melodies accompany these verbal expressions, the emotional elements intensify".
  Of course I can't think of the song Amazing Grace without my dear Uncle Jim's version of the song coming to mind, "Amazing Grace that was her name, oh where's my Gracie gone?".  Which brings me to another aspect of the book, John's love life.  He met this truly amazing girl, Polly, who's family cared for his mother in her illness prior to her death.  He loved her with a love that he claimed "bordered on idolatry".  She waited for him during the years he was away at sea.  She made a home for him that showed hospitality to all who entered - what an example! Something to strive for!
   The book as well as Newton's life shows that what came before doesn't define us, it guides us.  We learn from our mistakes and hopefully use it for God's glory.
   Thank you to Evangelical Press for sending me a copy of this book to review! :)