The other day you faithful correspondent made the mistake of watching a television news broadcast.
During said broadcast there was an account of some protest or another. The footage of the protest showed Joan Baez on a make-shift stage singing Amazing Grace. Last month, on the night of the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, the television news featured footage of Joan Baez singing Amazing Grace.
I'm getting damn tired of Joan Baez (or anyone else for that matter) singing Amazing Grace at this or that protest meeting. It seems that Amazing Grace has become, over the last forty years, the official protest hymn for people who do not evidently believe in amazing Grace.
The hymn was written by an ex-sea captain and slaver named John Newton in the 18th century. Newton abandoned his wicked ways and became an Anglican clergyman. He was, despite his opposition to slavery, a man who supported the establishment. He supported William Wilberforce and John Wesley. His hymn addressed personal conversion to Christ. Not the idea that Grace is universal.
Read the words of the first verse:
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost,
And now am found.
Was blind,
And now I see.
Note that in Newton's words Grace is personal. It is not corporate. It refers to one person -- me. It doesn't refer to us. It is the individual who knows whether or not he has received God's Grace. It is not for another to know. For another to claim to know whether another person has received God's Grace is an exercise in presumption, but one often finds those of the liberal bent to be presumptuous in their pronouncements.
The last I heard Joan Baez was a Quaker. Quakers believe in the doctrine of the Inner Light, not the doctrine of Grace as do the (shudder) Calvinists or Wesleyans. So why does Joan Baez sing Amazing Grace? Is it because it's a catchy tune? The tune used in the Americas is based on an English tavern song. It surely couldn't be the words, because if she intended to sing an old Christian hymn she could (and should) sing Isaac Watts' When I Survey The Wonderous Cross. But to do so would ruin the whole thing, I suppose, because the average American liberal has no more idea of the religious definition of Grace than he does of the string theory in physics.
As a Christian of the conservative ilk (though so very flawed) I'm getting tired of a hymn that American Christians have sung for close to two hundred years, a song giving praise to Christ, being used as a protest song by people who can't even spell Christ for the purpose of trying to prevent the state from exacting its due from people who have violated the lives of others.
The hymn Amazing Grace is a CHRISTIAN hymn. It is not a secular hymn. It is not a protest song. It is a hymn that reflects the Christian's awe that Christ has deigned to save him or her.
Did Christ deign to save Stanley Williams? I don't know. But I never saw any evidence of it. His last interviews emphasized no one other than Stan Williams, not Christ. In fact, Jesus was never mentioned. And in Joan Baez's last protest appearance there was not mention of Our Lord and his sacrifice.
So please, Joan and Judy (Collins), if you want to use the tune for Amazing Grace to express a protest of some sort, at least have the decency to write new words to the melody. The old IWW did it for the melody of Revive Us Again by using the tune for Hallelujah, I'm a Bum. If a bunch of uneducated workingmen can make new lyrics for an old melody, why can't you? If you can't, go back to singing Joe Hill.
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