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HistoryExtra podcast

Amazing Grace: a story of salvation and slavery

HistoryExtra podcast

HistoryExtra

History

4.34.7K Ratings

🗓️ 20 December 2023

⏱️ 32 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

John Newton was a slave-ship captain in the 18th century. However, he was also a devout Christian who went on to become a famous preacher and wrote the globally recognised hymn Amazing Grace. James Walvin talks to David Musgrove about how Newton and his contemporaries made sense of the contradiction of slavery and Christianity, and how Amazing Grace has taken on a life of its own after him. (Ad) James Walvin is the author of Amazing Grace: A Cultural History of the Beloved Hymn (University of California Press, 2023). Buy it now from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Amazing-Grace-Cultural-History-Beloved/dp/0520391829/?tag=bbchistory045-21&ascsubtag=historyextra-social-histboty The HistoryExtra podcast is produced by the team behind BBC History Magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to Just Between Us, the podcast with all of the answers, some of the time.

0:05.0

A bit of a different thing going on this week.

0:07.3

You've been immature and you've lied.

0:10.3

And now you're trying to turn it on me and manipulate me and gaslight me.

0:13.9

I was trying to manipulate you.

0:15.7

Diana, you would be chucking their clothes out of the window.

0:18.1

I know, I'd be like, are you joking?

0:20.6

I don't know. I guess you'd have to ask.

0:23.5

Someone that has sex.

0:24.2

Someone that has sex.

0:26.2

And remember, it's just between us.

0:32.3

Welcome to the History Extra podcast.

0:35.7

Fascinating historical conversations from BBC History Magazine and BBC

0:40.6

History Review.

0:49.4

The hymn Amazing Grace is a staple in choirs around the world, but it also has a long and fascinating history,

0:58.0

which takes in the story of slavery, abolition and civil rights, all of which has been documented by James Wolvin in his new book delving into the hymn's history.

1:08.1

David Musgrove spoke to James to find out more, and to kick off the conversation,

1:12.7

he asked who wrote the hymn to begin with. How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

1:36.3

I was, was lost, but now I found was blind but now I found was blank but now I see

1:52.0

It was written by the Reverend John Newton, an Anglican vicar in Olney in Buckinghamshire,

1:58.0

and he wrote it in 1772 and it was first song January the 1st, 1773.

2:03.5

But the extraordinary thing is that this hymn, written for an English audience by an Englishman,

...

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