Wednesday, July 24, 2024

It is the 24th of July 2024. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

*parts of this have been reproduced from an article Dan wrote on this site in 2019*

Of all the famous stories in church history that I am asked about, from church biography and pious retellings in sermon anecdotes, there are few I’m asked about as often as any is that of John Newton. His story seems almost too good to be true: a reformed slave trader who writes Amazing Grace… if this story wasn’t true, we would have needed to invent it. I’ve told it in various formats, but let me give you the gist of it and a suggestion on how we might think about it.

Newton was born in 1725 to the merchant ship captain John Newton Senior and Elizabeth Scatliff. While his mother was an early influence on his religious upbringing, she died before John turned seven. When he was 11, his father took him to sea, and before the age of 18, he had accepted a lucrative position with a merchant fleet in the Mediterranean. Soon, however, he was drafted into service by the British Royal Navy, and his temperament and desire to flee made him unpopular. Newton didn’t last long: he was flogged, whipped, and eventually kicked out of the Navy. It is here that he began his career as a slave trader in the infamous triangular slave trade with West Africa, the Americas, and Europe.

In an ironic twist, the West African Sherbro tribe abducted Newton and made him a slave to their princess, Peye. From 1745, Newton was a personal attendant to the princess. In 1748, an English captain rescued Newton; however, the slave trader’s personal experience in captivity did little to turn him from his old ways. He was quickly back to profiting from the slave trade.

Upon being rescued, their ship was met by a fierce storm off the coast of Ireland, and while almost sinking, Newton had a conversion experience. Again, one would hope that this experience would lead Newton to realize the discrepancy between a harsh slave trade and the Christian faith, but he didn’t. He would take more trips between Africa and the West before a stroke in 1754 ended his seafaring and slave trading career. He soon applied for the priesthood, but this still didn’t change his mind about the nature of his past work.

When he was made Curate in the Church of England in 1764, Newton not only began to write the famous “Olney Hymns” with colleague William Cowper but also wrote an autobiography. In his autobiography, Newton swings and misses again, describing his slave trading days as a time that taught him discipline.

In 1779, Newton began to feel the pangs of conscience, or at least write about them in his diary for the first time. Nine years later, during his time as the Rector at St. Mary’s in Woolnoth, he would eventually admit the evils of slavery and his own sin in promoting the trade. Newton confessed to his congregation:

“I am bound in conscience to take shame to myself by a public confession, which, however sincere, comes too late to prevent or repair the misery and mischief to which I have formally been an accessory.”

He would go on to assist William Wilberforce in the abolition movement and become one of its staunchest supporters until his death in 1807.

We could see in Newton a scoundrel who took too long to repent… he wrote Amazing Grace before repenting of his part in the slave trade! This becomes a theme in some Christian biographies where we are looking for the “aha!” moment- the one big repentance- but as Luther protested in the very first of his 95 Theses, the Christian life is a life of lifelong repentance.

Anyone with a fuzzy past might want to blur the timeline- make the real bad stuff in the “real before” time. Perhaps graph a trajectory line that is up and to the right when it's been a more slippery time and roundabout time. I think we do well in the spirit of that “Amazing Grace” to see grace infused not just at one point of repentance but in a life full of it, bringing us back to Jesus.

Next year is his 300th birthday- we will hear all about him then, I’m sure… in the meantime, a happy 299th birthday to the man born on the 24th of July in 1725.

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary- a great vignette from Luke 15:

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”

3 So he told them this parable: 4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.’ 7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 24th of July 2024, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who wonders what they were gonna eat at that party in the parable, because…. They could go vegetarian? He is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by who has rejoiced over a wonderful lamb with mint sauce… which is not the point of the parable, I just go hungry…I’m  Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.