John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace [Hardcover]

While not everyone knows the name of John Newton, everyone knows his song and at least a bit of his story. Immortalized in the words of "Amazing Grace," the most-recorded song in history, everyone knows that John Newton was wretched and miserable until saved by a grace that forever transformed his life. Two centuries ago, fewer people knew his song, but far more knew his story. That story is told again and told afresh in Jonathan Aitken's new biography John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace.

John Newton lived a life that could only have been more dramatic if it were the product of fiction. Forced into naval service when he was young, Newton endeared himself to no one, living a life of utter disregard for authority. While attempting to desert he was captured and dropped to the lowest ranks of seamen. He eventually found a way to be released from the military and wormed his way onto a slave shape with which he sailed down the long coast of Africa. Being deserted for a time on that dark continent, he was made the slave of a slave-trader and suffered terrible abuse at the hands of his captor. After a time he was rescued and became the captain of his own slave ship. But then, during a long passage across the Atlantic Ocean, he began to read a Bible and underwent the remarkable transformation chronicled in the song he wrote years later.

Newton worked in secular employment for a time but soon felt the call to ministry and was ordained an Anglican priest, a position he retained until his death in 1807. In the intervening years he became widely-known through his biography and through his efforts to abolish the slave trade. He served as mentor to William Wilberforce who fought a long but ultimately successful campaign to ban the British slave trade. It was two hundred years ago that this battle was won and two hundred years ago that Newton died. As Eric Metaxas has written a new biography of Wilberforce to mark the occasion, Aitken has done the same with Newton.

And it is quite a good biography. Aitken, who has previously chronicled the lives of Richard Nixon and Chuck Colson is a recent convert who underwent quite a radical conversion. He does a fine job of bringing the life of his subject to a whole new generation. While it may lack the depth of some of the greatest biographies of the greatest Christians, it is eminently readable and enjoyable from the first page to the last. A unique contribution of this book is that it relies on diaries and correspondence that have previously been unpublished. Newton's own writing, and especially his letters, provide a good deal of the book's content and some of its most edifying. In fact, the content and depth of these letters persuaded me to seek out a volume published by Banner of Truth titled simply The Letters of John Newton.

The theme of this biography can be aptly summarized by the final words spoken by this hero of the faith. "I am a great sinner, but Christ is a great Savior." This account takes us from Newton's days of joyous depravity to his dramatic conversion to his new life and ultimately to the moment he went to meet the great Savior he had come to know and love. It is a worthwhile addition to any library.

I have been involved with church music ministries for the last 15 years, and I don't think that six weeks have past without either performing, or being asked to perform the most popular hymn ever written: Amazing Grace. This song has been featured in almost every hymn collection published since its inception, and as of today, itunes has 150 different versions available for download. With such popularity you would think the hymn's enigmatic writer, John Newton, would be more celebrated today.

I hope that will change with a new biography written by Jonathan Aitken entitled, "John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace." Like most people, I knew Newton was a seafaring slave trader in his younger years and that he had a remarkable conversion experience at sea during a terrible storm, but I didn't realize that his life was the kind of epic adventure you would normally associate with a Cecil B. Demille movie.

Aitken's biography is one of the most compelling historical books I've had the pleasure to read. It is thorough, well researched without being dry, and written by a man who knows something about "being lost but found," since Jonathan Aitken became a believer while serving time in prison for perjury in an infamous London trial. Throughout the pages of Newton's life you are confronted with a man that knew the depth of his sin, but by God's grace, lived to preach, write and sing about God's forgiving grace found in Jesus Christ.

Jonathan Aitken has written an excellent biography, one of the best Christian biographies I have read. Newton is a great subject for a biography for he had a long and amazing life. Aitken is well qualified to write about "From Disgrace to Amazing Grace". He writes with style. His chapters are refeshingly short and to the point. The story is thrilling with "many dangers, toils and snare". One looses counts of the dangers from which the young Newton escapes. It is the story of a great sinner who was found by a great Saviour. Aitken tells the tale with real spiritual as well as historical undrstanding of his subject so that in concluion he can point the reader to spiritual lessons to be learned from Newton's life. For example. God's timing is not ours. Newton had to wait six years from applying, to be finally ordained as an Anglican minister. His marriage is an exemplary and touching story. Newtons spitiuality and prayer life are a real challenge. Aitken shows how faithful and inovatory Newton was as a pastor and how he helped many, especially his best friend William Cowper. Without Newton there would have neem no great poet only a forgotten suicide. Similarly, without Newton we would probably not have has Wilberforce, politician and reformer. Aitken also tells the story of Newton's famous hymn, its composition and rise to fame. Aitken faithfully relates Newton's faults too. His support of the American rebels had to be withdrawn but one is led to understand why many in England, especailly non-conformists, were suppporters of the rebels. Newton was an eirenic man who eschewed party labels and associated with Christian irrespective of denominational labels. This is a great biography and I hope we will have more from this fine Christian author.

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