After having read and reviewed Jonathan Aitken’s biography, John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace, I was left wondering what it would be like to sit and share a coffee with the man himself, ask him some questions about writing songs for the worshipping community and the power of music to proclaim the gospel. Of course, Newton’s been dead 200 years now, but thankfully, God has blessed me with an “unusual imagination” as my grandmother used to say. The following interview is how I think it may have gone down if John Newton was transported to San Diego in 2007 and met me at a Starbucks.
BT: Reverend Newton, thanks for being here and agreeing to do this interview posthumously. Your hymns, especially Amazing Grace, have had such an impact on the church for so many years; it is a real honor for me.
JN: Please, call me John. Although I may be, er…rather have been, an Anglican, I was a low churchman that always focused on the gospel rather on my specific tradition or church pedigree.
BT: Cool. After reading your biography by Jonathan Aitken, there are so many things we could discuss since the pages of your life turned like an epic adventure movie, but my audience is more concerned about your role a hymn writer, since that is why you are still celebrated today. Could you share a little background on how you began to develop this aspect of your ministry?
JN: Well my life did have a lot of ups and downs, but I don’t if it was all that exciting, especially since I do not know what an epic adventure movie is, but I will tell you that my love for song goes back to my years of being a seafarer. Music was just a part of every day life at sea, singing shanties, generally whooping it up with my fellow sailors during the course of what were often very hard and long days. I wasn’t always a Christian, you know? I hated authority figures, and therefore, I took it out on my superiors – most of them, anyway. I was always good with a verse and found that I could unify the crew in my hatred for the captain or the other officers by creating silly songs that would poke fun at their expense. I acted quite wantonly in those days. But as God in his grace sought to renew and restore me by his loving power, I was given something new to sing about, such as it were. I journaled for years about my life, prayers, and of course, the poetry that would later be put to song. But it wasn’t until my first pastorate that I truly began developing the songs that would make up our little hymnal.
BT: This would be the parish in Olney, right? And that not-so-little hymnal was a collection of several hundred songs that were written by you and your friend William Cowper.
JN: Yes, of course. Olney was my first official church pastorate, and it was a little rural parish, largely attended by lace-makers, blacksmiths, field laborers and general tradesman, so much of that collection of hymns grew out of my love and ministry for this group of saints.
BT: Could you explain the philosophy of writing the hymns, and how you employed them in worship?
JN: Well in those days congregational singing was very poor, and in many sectors general hymnody as you know it was not very popular. It began to grow in the independent movements through the Wesley brothers, which I had an affinity for, because of their desire to see the lost come to faith. At Olney we had a thriving children’s ministry on Thursdays, and because many of the children, as well as their parents, were not literate, I began employing simple songs that I wrote based upon Scripture passages as a means to teach these young ones by memorization. At this time, I had a wonderful woman in the church by the name of Mary Unwin who possessed a beautiful voice, so I often used her to help work out the song arrangements and lead the children. This practice became so well liked that it spilled over into other church meetings and often to Sunday morning services, where singing in this free and joyful manner was considered quite experimental, but the parishioners seemed to enjoy it.
BT: So you employed singing as a means of instruction. How would you determine what topics from Scripture to write songs about?
JN: The majority of the music was written around the particular topics I was preaching on. I used the power of music, rhyme and rhythm, the use of memory to help buttress the preached word. I found that by focusing on one major theme each week it helped to reinforce the entire service, and particularly, to illustrate the Biblical passage from which I was preaching. Of course, early on, we didn’t have a lot of songs to choose from, but Mr. Cowper and I spurred one another on each week and we would write about four or five new songs each month. And we used some of the songs from the Isaac Watts and the Wesley brothers, too.
BT: What particular elements of writing church music do you think you could share with our readers that may help them follow in your footsteps?
JN: My hymns were always much simpler than many of my contemporaries, especially Cowper, who was a first rate poet. The first thing I would say is that your songs must be based upon Scripture, or at least Scriptural truths. Secondly, they must be written for a particular audience to sing, and therefore…singable. I wrote these songs for my congregation. They expressed the desires, needs, and adoration of our particular community and as such, were very personal. That is not to say that they cannot transcend your particular community, because the truth of God does so, and of course, many Christians will share common experiences, but your community must be the starting place in which to create.
BT: When you say your songs were much simpler, what do you mean?
JN: Again this goes back to my community which were common laborers and uneducated. The content of the music expressed the deep wisdom and riches of God, but I sought to convey that in lyrics that were simple to sing. If I did anything well I guess it was that I was able to employ music in a way that made complex ideas more understandable to the man or woman in the pew that just wanted to praise their God. The two most common books in church in those days were the King James Bible and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and both proved to be difficult for the common man to understand, so the poetical forms I used were very simple: easy cadence, few syllables, and a simple rhyming structure, which helped with memorization, so the church could learn the tune in just a couple passes. [By way of example, Newton burst into verse, which did turn a few heads in the coffee shop.]
And may the gospel’s joyful sound
Enforced by mighty grace,
Awaken many sinners round,
To come and fill the place.
JN: I guess you could say that clarity and simplicity were the cornerstones of my hymn writing.
BT: Yes, that makes sense, because the song you are most known for is both profound, and yet simple, and I guess you could say profoundly simple, since it employs only 146 words, and of those no fewer than 125 are words of one syllable.
JN: Are you speaking of Amazing Grace?
BT: Yes. It has become the most sung, most recorded, and most loved hymn in the world. Could you tell us a little about its background?
JN: I believe I conceived this song back in December of 1772 in preparation for a sermon I was going to preach on New Years day. I often used the beginning of the new year to challenge my congregation to take stock of their spiritual lives, and I believe I was going to preach on the life of David from 1 Chronicles 17, if my memory serves me aright. I saw great spiritual parallels in the life of King David and myself, both the worst of sinners, and yet, undeserved recipients of God’s amazing grace. Amazing Grace had many personal overtones in it, so you could say this song had the two-fold advantage of illustrating God’s grace and a bit of spiritual autobiography in it, which every sinner who was lost but found could grab hold of and make their own song. By using the personal pronouns – I, me, my, mine – I was able to illustrate each person’s spiritual journey of faith, which I guess is why this song has become so prominent. We can all relate to God’s amazing grace found in Christ alone.
BT: Amen to that. Thank you for your time, Reverend Newton. Any last words?
JN: What is this beverage that I’ve been drinking?
BT: A Carmel Macchiato.
JN: Yes. A Carmel Macchiato, you say. It’s delightful!
To learn more about John Newton, please checkout Jonathan Aitken’s biography, “John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace”, by Crossway Books, which can be found here.
Brian Thomas is a Director of Worship and the owner of a missional worship label Semper Reformanda Records in San Diego, CA.
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