Amazing Grace, Revisited…
Perry C. Douglas
February 27, 2022
Free will and the ability to think critically while applying intelligence is core to a Black prosperity existence. Thinking carefully and critically about the mental subjugation trap of Christianity is central. So, let’s spend some time looking at the song Amazing Grace to bring out some not so conscious thoughts and understandings about the universe.
During this COVID-19 crisis, many are faced with unique challenges. In one way or the other, everyone might have had to change something in their lives to navigate through the pandemic. Some will have to face greater challenges than others; nevertheless, transcending change is in our midst, and such, adapting to transformation may require a total reinvention of self, for some. Undoubtedly, this may require finding untapped internal strength to do so.
The human condition has always dealt with adversity through adaptation, driven by inspiration. Appropriately, the song Amazing Grace, one of the most iconic songs in the world, is played over 10 million times a year, and is the story about inspired change, doing better! Yet many may not know the story behind this amazing song. It was written over 300 years ago by English poet and clergyman, John Newton, who was also a former slave trader.
As a clergyman, however, Newton was looking for a hymn to go along with his New Year’s Day service. He was looking for a simple song, one that simple people could enjoy. Heartfelt words that would inspire. Newton had already selected the scripture for his sermon that morning — first Chronicles, seventeen…where King David asks himself with wonder, “who am I… that thou hast brought me here.” Newton then said to his congregation that Friday morning… the 1st of January 1773… “the Lord gives us many blessings, but unless we are grateful for these, we lose much of the comfort from them.” So… Newton uttered… “never mind David. What about you and me, where were you when the Lord found you?” For himself, Newton answered, “I was a wretch.”
Hence, the first words of the song would be “Amazing Grace,” which sounded right to him, yes, it did; indeed, he then wrote, “how sweet the sound.” While writing he began to reflect on his former life and the fact that he was once a slave ship captain, trafficking in human cargo. During that time, Newton was once captured by a rival ship and forced to work as a “slave” himself for a short while, on a small island off the coast of Sierra Leone.
After his release, Newton went directly to live so depravedly that even his shipmates found it so shocking. What a wretched life I have led, he said. He then began to ask the Lord for grace and forgiveness… to “save a wretch like me.” He realized how far he had moved away from God, and the life God indented for him in his former life… “I once was lost, but now am found.” Newton then reflected more intensely, reflecting on his life of sin — as a slave trader, and his own brief enslavement experience… “T’was Grace that taught my heart to fear.” Newton continued to pray and reflect, “And Grace, my fears relieved How precious did that grace appear The hour I first believed.” Spirituality, purpose, redemption seemed to be where Newton was headed.
For the rest of his life, Newton would mark every March 21st as a day of humiliation, prayer, and praise for his great deliverance from a life of sin, which he’d been living. Newton’s conversion set him on a long winding path, that would take him to a new life; not in one great leap, but step by single step. A sinner, who sought grace from God, and God gave it, gracefully!
It was then Newton’s life began to become completely transformed. Again, not all at once, the transformation was a long process, and “if I had any light then, it would be at the first faint streak of dawn,” Newton said. Pastor John Newton dipped his quill once again — how could he sum up this long journey? He began to lament: “Through many dangers, toils and snares. I have already come.” He wanted to sum up that this was not a single event, but something that is with him every day: “T’was grace that brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home.” The once slave ship captain did not only go on to renounce slavery but worked actively to abolish it. Nineteen years before his death, Newton’s Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade was published. His personal experiences and eyewitness accounts of the appalling conditions upon slave ships, the brutality, and the atrocities of slavery. Provided British abolitionists and parliamentarians like William Wilberforce; with the evidence, they needed to educate a misinformed public.
As Newton approached death…he told his close friend William Jay, his now-famous declaration, “my memory is near gone but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great saviour.” Newton died in 1807 at the age of 82.
In the years following his death, Newton’s song would have an amazing journey. By now, in its original form, the hymn was all but forgotten in England. However, as grace would have it, nearly a half-century after Newton wrote the song, it began to appear in the American south, sung to a new melody. This new music…new tune, which today is so much a part of the hymn, that one could not even imagine it any other way. Newton’s simple words had enormous new power in life, it became a quantum source of power that brought some comfort to the indignity of slavery. Through brutality and subjugation, Amazing Grace, ironically written by a former slave trader now became the salvation, and hope for slaves themselves.
However, that salvation that the plantation slaves found in Amazing Grace, had nothing to do with religion, nothing to do with its doctrines and ideologies. Slaves saw the song purely for what it provided them, a source of strength and inspiration through the utility of spirituality! So, the spiritual words that Newton wrote, based on his transformation was now being utilized by slaves to find the strength to stay alive, under the brutality of the institution of slavery. This had nothing to do with adherence to religious dogma, nothing to do with Christianity, but everything to do with satisfying the needs of the human condition — the human need for strength and resolve, the triumph of the human spirit!
Amazing Grace was also sung often on civil rights marches, it was sung when Martin Luther King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. Sung with rejoicing in South Africa when Nelson Mandela was released from prison. Sung throughout the south and the Caribbean, whenever its comfort was called upon. The story of Amazing Grace reminds us all, that the same Grace that transformed the life of a former slave ship captain, three centuries ago, can still change lives today. Therefore, the true story of Amazing Grace, however, is a story of spirituality that continues, and as long as there are people in need of hope and deliverance, its Grace will have no end! Therefore, the grace in Amazing Grace was the spirituality it provides for the soul, and not for religion. Grace is the power and utility of spirituality itself, and the slaves were able to separate that awesome usefulness in spirituality from the white supremacy doctrine ideologies of Christianity. Their survival required strength, not faith because faith through Christianity is fake, self-serving, bolstering to white supremacy. Our slave ancestors were wise and resourceful and knew how to find strength and perseverance to survive. They never bought into White Supremacy Christianity (WSC).
Unlike our resilient ancestors, unfortunately, Blacks today have been unable or unwilling to separate religion from the high utility function of spirituality, they swallow religious doctrine whole, putting aside the energy of spirituality that can manifest power in them. So blindly acquiescing and adhering to WSC. Therefore, today, by their own free will, Blacks subjugate themselves to the complex and bothered psyche towards inferiority, often through the main supportive institution of white supremacy, the church! To an existence of suffering and despair by the intrinsic subconscious acceptance of religious bible stories doctrines, to guide their lives.
At its core, the story of Amazing Grace is about finding your inspiration, just like good literature and music, it helps the soul through storytelling. However, we must become astute enough to understand the differences, in what we use to fuel our souls. Living in consciousness, not getting caught up in WSC culture, and not falling for ideology wrapped up in bible stories. Making stories the centre of our belief system is harmful to our existence. Here we must use our free will, individuality, and dare to express ourselves freely to logic, critical thinking, and common sense. The internal power to unbecome or to overcome, towards becoming what you desire to be, that power is found in spirituality. However, this first requires attachment to facts, logic, and reason, satisfying your humanity within the human condition. Spirituality is our natural sense of being, it is real, it is about the manifestation of our natural energy to connect with the positive forces in the universe to better our lives. We think therefore we exist, there can be no doubt about that, our spirituality verifies our individual existence. Religion, on the other hand, is made up, of fantasy stories, bogus self-serving doctrines; and relative to people of African descent, Christianity-religion is the “opium of the masses.” Used to confuse, delude, dominate for the purpose of taking advantage of the levers of wealth, power, and privilege, in an economic conflict-driven world.
Adaptation and change, whether through necessity or from what is deep in the heart, requires inspiration and purpose. So, regardless of what we think, or what we choose to believe about Newton’s own transformation. The main point is, that during a crisis of the soul, there are often spiritual opportunities for growth, and learning. And using “God”, for Newton, was his expression of his inner spirituality. For enslaved Black people their soulful rendition of the song Amazing Grace was also utilized for their own spiritual purposes, one of survival, and we are all beneficiaries of their resilience and power. Let’s not squander that, nor romanticize it, slavery was real! Let’s learn from it, honour it, through the adherence of objective truths, and not the trivialities about religion. Let’s use logic, and common sense, and like our brave and wise ancestors, separate religion from spirituality. Questioning our own belief systems, making ourselves uncomfortable, combined with honesty and courage are all requisites for progress and the unshackling of mental slavery. These can also be your first steps to finding your very own Amazing Grace, along with your conscious place in the universe.
