Christianity from the 43 bus: 13. John Newton

Continuing a journey through London on the 43 bus route - with a Christian eye.  The whole series is viewable on the '43 bus route' tag below.

Although the 43 bus route has often been changed over the years, and is due to change again shortly, conveniently for my blog it heads down Moorgate into the City of London, passing the west side of the Bank of England.  There it enters King William Street.

There on the first corner it comes to another candidate for the ugliest church in London (see THIS EARLIER BLOG), this time St Mary Woolnoth.   It is one of the almost unimaginable number of Church of England churches serving the City of London (and its population of less than 9000).

What sets St Mary Woolnoth apart is one of its former incumbents, John Newton.  Though famed as the sea captain of slaving ships who was dramatically converted and became vicar of Olney in Buckinghamshire, Newton was latterly the minister of St Mary Woolnoth.  He was famed in his day, and history has given him - and his hymn Amazing Grace, more fame still.

Wisely, perhaps, he chose to write his own epitaph, which to this day is on the church wall inside:

John Newton, 

clerk, 

once an infidel and libertine, 

a servant of slaves in Africa, 

was by the rich mercy of 

our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 

preserved, restored, pardoned, 

and appointed to preach the faith

 he had long laboured to destroy.

24/7

As we disappear into a frozen, snowy freezer of a weekend it is possible to think that Christmas came early and should have waited for the snow.  Not the Christmas of the Bible of course (because we don't know when that came) but folk-festival Christmas with its See amid the winter's snow and snow had fallen snow on snow.

The Internet has done many things to change our lives.  One of them is that Christmas never needs to stop, rather like those Christmasophiles who never take their Christmas decorations down.  Now that a guy with an Internet connection and time on his hands can start an Internet 'radio' station there are plenty of places where you can have Christmas all day long, all year long.(link).

If the thought of Christmas all year is not quite focused enough there are alternatives.  A favourite (sorry, favorite) of mine (in the sense of bizarre interest) is Amazing Grace 247. This, one might say, does what it says on the tin.  Every minute of day and night it plays a version of the hymn Amazing Grace.  So, unless there is a commercial playing right now go ahead to the link and listen and you'll hear John Newton's hymn until you never want to hear it again.  With a small leap of the imagination you can almost hear Newton banging his head on a wall in despair.