Obama leads singing of Amazing Grace at Charleston funeral says BBC newsUS President Obama has delivered the eulogy at the service for the church leader and South Carolina state senator, Clementa Pinckney, who was among nine people shot dead in the city of Charleston last week. The attack on the bible study group at a historic African-American church is thought to be racially motivated.
President Obama concluded his oration by leading the congregation in singing the hymn, Amazing Grace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtLynhY5hA8Amazing Grace Indeed Grace is Amazing...
That English John Newton's "Amazing Grace" has different tunes.. different colors and different singers sometimes even different words . John Newton though a white English guy understood what it means to be slave and what it means to have slave mentality and slave ownership mentality...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsCp5LG_zNEwell Faith shows different paths to people and different people take different faiths in their lives..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA0b4eZTlrAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK7tYOVd0Hswell Interesting song has very interesting origins..
"Amazing Grace" is a Christian hymn published in 1779, with words written by the English poet and clergyman John Newton (1725–1807).
Newton wrote the words from personal experience. He grew up without any particular religious conviction, but his life's path was formed by a variety of twists and coincidences that were often put into motion by his recalcitrant insubordination. He was pressed (involuntarily forced) into service in the Royal Navy, and after leaving the service, he became involved in the Atlantic slave trade. In 1748, a violent storm battered his vessel off the coast of County Donegal, Ireland so severely that he called out to God for mercy, a moment that marked his spiritual conversion. Whilst his boat was being repaired in Lough Swilly, he wrote the first verse of his world famous song. He did however, continue his slave trading career until 1754 or 1755, when he ended his seafaring altogether and began studying Christian theology.
Ordained in the Church of England in 1764, Newton became curate of Olney, Buckinghamshire, where he began to write hymns with poet William Cowper. "Amazing Grace" was written to illustrate a sermon on New Year's Day of 1773. It is unknown if there was any music accompanying the verses; it may have simply been chanted by the congregation. It debuted in print in 1779 in Newton and Cowper's Olney Hymns but settled into relative obscurity in England. In the United States however, "Amazing Grace" was used extensively during the Second Great Awakening in the early 19th century. It has been associated with more than 20 melodies, but in 1835 it was joined to a tune named "New Britain" to which it is most frequently sung today.
Topic: 21-year-old man suspected of killing nine people at a historic African-American