“Amazing grace,” intoned the eulogist, and repeated it. He began to sing: “how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me,” and the congregation, a bit startled, joined in, as the pianist scrambled ...

As we look at another New Year’s Day, it’s a good time to reflect on a song that unites rather than divides us: the Rev. John Newton’s hymn “Amazing Grace.” The hymn first appeared in Newton’s New ...

"I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I hope to be. But by the grace of God, I am certainly not what I was." -- John Newton Christopher Smith had never heard of John Newton when, with a little ...

AMAZING GRACE: A Cultural History of the Beloved Hymn. By James Walvin. University of California Press. 216 pages. $19.95. When President Obama sang “Amazing Grace” at the funeral of the Rev. Clementa ...

(RNS) — James Walvin, a former Church of England choirboy and professor of history at the University of York, doesn’t remember encountering “Amazing Grace,” in song or in his hymnal. It wasn’t until ...

What Remains is in theaters and on demand Dec. 2 The late Anne Heche and the production team of her new movie What Remains came together for a special moment on her last day of filming. On Wednesday, ...

You know those songs that you just kind of know? You sing along without even thinking about the lyrics. Well, we're going to explore the history of one of these songs today. It's heard around the ...

Many people think they know the story of the hymn,"Amazing Grace." The commonly accepted narrative presents its composer, John Newton, a young English captain of a late 18th-century slave ship, as a ...

As we look at another New Year’s Day, it’s a good time to reflect on a song that unites rather than divides us: the Rev. John Newton’s hymn “Amazing Grace.” The hymn first appeared in Newton’s New ...