Talk:John Newton
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[edit] Amazing Grace
According to his book "Bury The Chains," Adam Hochschild states that John Newton wrote the hymn "Amazing Grace" while he was still involved in the slave trade and actually was a captin on a Trans-Atlantic slave ship twice. It wasn't until ill health, preventing him from continuing his slave trade involvement, and external pressures from progressive forces that led him to change his position on the issue of slavery. Please amend the introductory paragraph to reflect this truth.
- Actually I don't think "Bury the chains" claim that Newton still was involved in the slave trade when he wrote "Amazing Grace". He certainly was not an opponent though.
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- You have condensed more than thirty years of Newton's life into three lines. What Hochschild actually says in the book is that the fallacy of Newton's alleged 'sudden revelation' of the evils of the slave trade has often been perpetuated in print. In fact, it took more than thirty years after he left the trade for him to make any comment about it at all. The hymn Amazing Grace was actually written about 1772, at the time he was collaborating with Cowper, but it was long after even this that he first publicly criticised slavery – Agendum 01:04, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
ALL these mistakes and misunderstandings in chronology can be cleared up if one will simply consult Newton himself. His autobiography, Out of the Depths, has been available for nearly 200 years, and is still in print (Kregel Publishers). Tjamespaul 17:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
An article by Todd Parkhurst "The Story of Amazing Grace" gives the date of writing Amazing Grace as 1772, long after he left the slave trade in 1954. He adds that the 1858 "Southern Harmony and Musical Companion" containing the hymn and (new) melody sold more than 600,000 copies in America. This article is also a useful source of further details regarding his contact with William Wilberforce and his mother Hannah. Philatstoneypath 09:23, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Newton's advice for Wilberforce
A very interesting and illuminating piece of information about Wilberforce's call - thanks for adding this. Do you have a source for this quotation? - I would be interested to know. – Agendum 22:51, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
I removed the link to Thornton because it led to someone else (a football player, I believe). - Triviaa 02:00, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Slave trader
The point about John Newton's time as a slave trader, and the reason that I have reverted edits by 71.226.193.19 is that these are important stages in his journey from an 'infidel and libertine' to a Christian preacher. This has been researched, the sources being the article by D. Bruce Hindmarsh in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and Bury the Chains by Adam Hochschild. It is especially important that he is accurately quoted (according to his own epitaph) as having been a 'servant of slaves in Africa' – Agendum 21:23, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Great Awakening
I just changed the link for "Evanglical revival" in the section about his conversion to Christianity to link to the First Great Awakening article instead of the Revivalism article, because the Revivalism article doesn't have very much information in it about the Great Awakening. I could see an argument for leaving it linked to Revivalism, though, if Revivalism were expanded and cleaned up. I don't have the expertise to do so, though. Just thought I'd leave a note in case someone wanted to change the link here back at some point. faithx5 15:52, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] conversion?
So, if he was previously not a Christian, what was he? — coelacan talk — 22:02, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
A an 'evangelical' Christian, Newton believed that you cannot be born into the Christian religion, but had to come to faith following a conviction of sin and repentance. In his autobiograpy "Out of the Depths" he interleaves his accounts of events such as the storm and near shipwreck with his internal spiritual struggle that ended with his resolution to turn to God for help. As he put it: "About this time I began to know that there is a God who hears and answers prayer". For those who want to find out more detail about Newton's spirituality, I would recommend "Letters of John Newton" (Banner of Truth) and a critical analysis in "John Newton and the Evangelical Tradition by D. Bruce Hindmarsh" (Eerdmans) Philatstoneypath 09:42, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Christian minister
I think the term 'Christian minister' would be more appropriate to an evangelical clergyman of Newton's persuasion than 'Christian priest', and have changed the sub-heading back again – Agendum 13:05, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I think "Christian minister" is more appropriate as well, but for a different reason. The term "Christian priest" is non-idiomatic and perhaps even somewhat redundant. As for the use of the term "priest," it should be noted that the Church of England does have priests, and that Newton was ordained as a priest of the Church of England, as the article indicates.
John Paul Parks (talk) 19:33, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Neutrality disputed
By whom? – Agendum 22:07, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
- Ive not been able to find any biased POV accounts in this article Tired of people tagging NPOV without expressing reasoning behind it--Csodennc 18:48, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Potential copyright violation
The last paragraph under Anglican priest appears to be oddly un-Wikipedia like in content and placement and has the distinct feel of an encyclopedia or book opening paragraph. This paragraph begins with the sentence “John Newton (1725–1807) captained two Liverpool slave ships in his twenties and kept detailed logs of his voyages.” This wording was added 15:56, 14 January 2008 by 81.1.123.107. The use of birth-death dates in parentheses and describing in summary highlights of his life already covered are at odds with the balance of the article. I performed several searches using common search engines and could NOT find an exact match from another resource at this time, however I would like to get others opinion whether this paragraph should be left as-is, edited to flow better with the rest of the article, or deleted as a suspected copyright violation. Thank you. Civilengtiger (talk) 20:07, 26 February 2008 (UTC) John Paul Parks (talk) 03:41, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Final years
I have deleted the section "final years" as all it contained was the false statement that John Newton never married. In fact he was very happily married to Mary nee Catlett (known as Polly) from 1750 until her death in 1790. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.51.159.237 (talk) 21:56, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
