The Wretch Who Wrote the World's Most Beloved Hymn

In 1772, an Anglican clergyman sat down to write a hymn for his small congregation in Olney, England. The words he chose stunned with their honesty: "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me."

John Newton was not being modest. He knew exactly what he had been. For years, Newton had captained slave ships across the Atlantic, trafficking human beings in conditions so brutal that many did not survive the crossing. He had hardened his conscience so thoroughly that he once described himself as someone who had abandoned every restraint of morality.

Then came a violent storm in 1748 that nearly swallowed his ship whole. In desperation, Newton cried out to the God he had long dismissed. That storm cracked something open in him — not all at once, but irreversibly. The forgiveness of the Almighty reached a man who had no right to expect it, and it changed everything. Newton eventually left the slave trade, became a pastor, and spent his remaining decades advocating for abolition alongside William Wilberforce.

What makes Amazing Grace endure across centuries and cultures is not its melody but its theology. Newton understood that forgiveness is not a reward for the deserving. It is a gift that finds us in the storm, in the wreckage of our worst selves.

If grace could reach a slave trader on a sinking ship, it can reach anyone sitting in your pew this morning — including you.