Way Stations | Conversations Along the Journey

John Newton’s Amazing Grace: The Man and the Story Behind the Song -with guest Dr. Bruce Hindmarsh

Bruce Hindmarsh holds the James M. Houston Chair of Spiritual Theology at Regent College in Vancouver. He has published and spoken widely to international audiences on the history of early British evangelicalism. His recent book, Amazing Grace: The Life of John Newton and the Surprising Story Behind the Song, co-authored with Craig Borlase, offers a dramatic biography of John Newton, the 18th century slave-trader turned abolitionist who penned the poem, Amazing Grace, that has become the near universal hymn of humanity in the western world.

Bruce joins Steve to talk about this page-turner of a dramatic biography which will also yield a feature-length documentary in 2024.

WEBSITE:

www.brucehindmarsh.com

Books by Bruce Hindmarsh:

Amazing Grace: The Life of John Newton and the Surprising Story Behind the Song  By Bruce Hindmarsh and Craig Borlase (W Publishing Group, an imprint of Thomas Nelson, 2023)

Newton’s story is shocking, and Amazing Grace does not try to airbrush or excuse his faults. There are glaring contradictions in the life of a ship’s Captain who retreats to his cabin to study his Bible and write tender love letters to his wife while hundreds of slaves lie in chains in the hold below.

The Spirit of Early Evangelicalism: True Religion in a Modern World By Bruce Hindmarsh (Oxford University Press, 2018)

The Spirit of Early Evangelicalism sheds new light on the nature of evangelical religion by locating its rise with reference to major movements of the 18th century, including Modernity, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment. Hindmarsh draws on a wide range of sources to make meaningful connections between the evangelical awakening and the history of science, law, art, and literature. 

For Christ and His Kingdom: Inspiring a New Generation By James Houston and Bruce Hindmarsh (Regent College Publishing, 2013)

Dr. Hindmarsh presents the need for intellectual and spiritual integrity as essential to paradosis, the transmission of a living faith to the next generation, while Dr. Houston provides a compelling case for a fulsome theological understanding of the person in Christ as intrinsic to an authentic Christian education that avoids the reductionism of secular viewpoints.

The Evangelical Conversion Narrative: Spiritual Autobiography in Early Modern England By Bruce Hindmarsh (Oxford University Press, 2005)

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, thousands of ordinary women and men experienced evangelical conversion and turned to a certain form of spiritual autobiography to make sense of their lives. This book traces the rise and progress of conversion narrative as a unique form of spiritual autobiography in early modern England.

John Newton and the English Evangelical Tradition: Between the Conversions of Wesley and Wilberforce By Bruce Hindmarsh

Dr. Hindmarsh draws upon extensive archival and antiquarian sources to provide a serious, scholarly consideration of the life and religious thought of John Newton (1725-1807). In addition, he uses the theme of Newton as a 'sort of middle man' to explore the religious understanding of a whole generation who knew themselves as 'evangelical' although this was different from those who later adopted the term as a badge of partisan loyalty. 

SONG:

Come To My Help (Psalm 70:1) By Steve Bell

*WATCH VODCAST ON YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/ZfLYdoPvxTA

SEE ALSO:

In 2021 Steve released a independant vodcast with Dr. Bruce Hindmarsh discussing the life of St. John of The Cross and his poem "Dark Night of the Soul" which is the inspiration for Steve's song of the same name.

The vodcast includes a performance video of the song at the end of the conversation.

Watch: Steve Bell Video Podcast: Bruce Hindmarsh "Dark Night of the Soul" (St. John of the Cross)

AN INVITATION TO AN INDIGENOUS WORLDVIEW  - with guest Reverend Dr. Randy Woodley 

Randy outlines a traditional North American Indigenous worldview (Harmony Way) of caretaking, co-operation and community as opposed to the Western worldview of conquest, exploitation, and individualism. He argues that the former is akin to the ancient Hebrew vision of shalom, and vital for healing and maintaining the Creator’s “community of creation.”

WEBSITES:

Randy Woodley: www.randywoodley.com

Reverend Dr. Randy Woodley (Keetoowah Cherokee) is a prolific author, and recognized activist, leader and teacher in the fields of Indigenous and intercultural studies, theology, ecology and missiology. 

Woodley and his wife, Edith, are co-sustainers of Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice and Eloheh Farm and Seeds.

Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice: www.eloheh.org Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice focuses on developing, implementing and teaching sustainable and regenerative earth practices.

“Eloheh” (pronounced Ay-luh-hay) is a Cherokee Indian word meaning harmony, wholeness, abundance and peace. 

Eloheh Farm and Seeds: www.elohehseeds.com “We now have our own seed company, and we are trying to preserve open-pollinated organic seeds, many native species, and heirloom seeds... and that’s all very important to us... I would say every bit as important as our theological work because I don’t see a difference between them.”  - Randy Woodley

BOOKS:

Shalom and the Community of Creation: An Indigenous Vision By Randy S. Woodley (2012 Eerdmans)

Randy parallels a traditional Native American social harmony ethic (which he calls The Harmony Way) with the ancient Hebrew vision of Shalom.

Indigenous Theology and the Western Worldview: A Decolonized Approach to Christian Doctrine By Randy Woodley (2022 Baker Academic)

Randy critiques the worldview that undergirds the North American church by dismantling assumptions regarding early North American histories and civilizations, offering a comparative analysis of worldviews, and demonstrating a decolonized approach to Christian theology.

Mission and the Cultural Other: A Closer Look By Randy S. Woodley (2022, Cascade Books)

Randy offers a critique of the modern colonial missions project from the perspective of its casualties.

Becoming Rooted: One Hundred Days of Reconnecting with Sacred Earth By Randy Woodley 2022 Broadleaf Books

Creation is always teaching us. Our task is to look, and to listen, and to live well. Through meditations and ideas for reflection and action, Randy guides the reader on a one-hundred-day journey to reconnect with creation and Creator. 

ONLINE LECTURES:

Indigenous Spirit: Weaving Justice and Peace in a Wounded Land 2022 Rutlen Lecture at Luther Seminary with Dr. Randy Woodley

The Myth of History and Progressive Civilization  2019 Hayward Lectures at Acadia Divinity College with Dr. Randy Woodley

SONG:

Wouldn’t You Love to Know?   Music and Lyrics by Steve Bell | Signpost Music (performance video)

Drawing on his recent books, This Sacred Life (Cambridge University Press, 2021), and Agrarian Spirit (Notre Dame Press,2022), eco-theologian/philosopher Norman Wirzba discusses Christian faith, hope and love in the Anthropocene.   An.thro.po.cene: denoting the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.

*Watch as a vodcast on YouTube HERE...

Show Notes:

Website: 

www.normanwirzba.com

Article: 

Can We Live in a World Without A Sabbath: Rethinking the Human in the Anthropocene

Books:

This Sacred Life: Humanity’s Place in a Wounded World (Cambridge University Press, 2021)

Agrarian Spirit: Cultivating Faith, Community and the Land (Notre Dame Press, 2022)

Song:

In Praise of Decay (Steve Bell/Malcolm Guite)

Quotables from Podcast:

“Everything that comes out of creation is beloved by God. And that's a game changer, because you're not now stuck by yourself, wondering, is God going to find me or is he going to be angry with me? Because you're immersed in this whole world of creation that God has always, only ever loved... and you're the effect of that love.”

“Robin Wall Kimmerer says this beautifully in one of her books, Braiding Sweetgrass, she says people actually need to feel the land as a place of blessing, the land as a place that nurtures your body and doesn't just nurture your body, but loves and welcomes your presence in the world.”

“Your life isn't just some big accident...it's part of a larger world which is beautiful and fragrant and sometimes delicious.”

“The desire to control the world, have mastery over the world...what that actually does is it destroys the possibility of having a relationship with the world.”

“We call it the Anthropocene because human beings (Greek: Anthropos), through their developed economies, their agricultural practices, their technological innovation—what they have done now is they've really taken control of the world, meaning that there isn't an ecosystem process, a bio, geophysical, chemical process that isn't affected by human power, human technology.”

“Human engineering, has made it possible for us to do all kinds of interventions in plant and animal life so that where you look—from the cell, all the way to the atmosphere and everywhere in between¬¬¬–we can't talk about something being natural anymore because the whole concept of nature has been super seeded by this power of human beings to re-engineer, remake the world in ways that are satisfying to them.”

“What's important is to recognize that human beings have learned to exercise the kind of power that now will determine the future of the whole planet in all of its life forms.”

“This power has somehow gone renegade and is now become a force that threatens to actually undo the human race? When you think about the amount of climate refugee migration there's going to be, I mean, there's just so many things coming down the road that are truly frightening because we're talking about food insecurity, civil instability, all kinds of things.”

“If we're going to talk about anything that relates to a genuinely human life, we have to understand that human life is always rooted life because we need nurture from the ground... literally.”

“A tremendous spiritual awakening happens when you realize that you're not some isolated bit cut off from the world, but you're actually deeply enmeshed or entangled within the world.”

“We're rooted beings, enmeshed beings, meaning that the world we live in always depends upon us being connected in visceral ways. Not just in optional voluntary ways, but in visceral ways with the lives of plants and animals and insects and bugs and microbes and soil processes, hydrological cycles, atmospheric processes. All of it is absolutely crucial to our bodies being able to do what we do.”

“Whenever we see a living being, another person, we don't just see that person. We see a whole world that is making that person that being possible.”

“What's going to make it possible for people to still live, in a way that honors the dignity of persons and places, is if we can figure out how to love persons and places and love ourselves and see the beauty in a world that even as it's being marred and destroyed or degraded, it's still worth cherishing.”

“Instead of asking ‘what gives you hope?’ ask, ‘what are you prepared to love?’ Because If we can figure out what we're going to love and then learn how to activate that love within each other, then we can face whatever bad stuff is going to come in a way that we couldn't if we were alone or just totally despairing about the world.”

“Learn to nurture the place that nurtures you. That's the fundamental agrarian commitment.”

“An agrarian is going to ask, ‘How do we learn to love where we are?’ Because when we love where we are, we also love all the beings that make their home there. And we can't live a good life, we can't live a hopeful life if we feel that the places that make our living possible are either being mined or degraded or abandoned.”

“So, an agrarian spirit is really about how do we develop the kinds of spiritual practices or exercises that will draw us more closely into life with each other in life, with our places, through our places, so that what we see is, instead of an escape from the world, a deeper immersion into the world, so that we can see how where we are is a place of blessing, but also a place that calls us to certain kinds of responsibilities of care and respect.”

“We've commodified land, we've commodified creatures, plants, animals, but also workers, so that every place, every creature, including human workers or units of production, that's how we see them.”

“From a Christian point of view, or a spiritual point of view, we could never say that another human being, or another creature, is simply a unit of production, because from a theological or a scriptural point of view, the first thing to say about you or about any place is: you are the embodiment of God's love.”

“[The agrarian spirit is]a way of coming to see the world not as a commodity, but as a gift. A gift that is sacred because it's the embodied expression of a loving, divine intention; that its goodness is part of it being from the beginning.”

We have to think about how to grow our food in a way that honors the life of the food, the life of the animals, the life of the agricultural worker? How are we going to source energy that doesn't depend upon massive pollution, or the blowing up of mountains to get their coal? And how are we going to make clothing in a way that honors cotton, for instance, or flax or whatever elements you use to make the things that you wear? 

“If we have in mind the question, How can we honor the life that makes our living possible?,  we're going to do a much better job living together. We'll find that we are much happier. We're much healthier people. It's not to say there won't be sadness or that there won't be tragedy because there will. But at least we're going to be living in a world that we perceived to be worthy of our effort, worthy of our cherishing.”

“It’s not enough to reduce the work we need to do to personal virtue or vice. It's not about us saying, okay, I'm going to be vegan or I'm going to change my light bulbs or I'm going to get Fairtrade coffee...if that's enough. We do have to talk about systems. We’ve got to talk about built environments. How are we going to put in better economies that will enable people to do the right thing? We need to do all those things. But I think what agrarian spirit is saying is that we're not going to be able to do those things apart from certain kinds of practices in which we, first of all, come to feel our entanglement within the lives of others and see that entanglement not as a restriction on our freedom, but as an ability to nurture a fullness of life that we couldn't have had alone.”

“This is where we're songwriters and music can play such an important role because, you know, music is about listening. It's about hearing other notes going through other notes, and notes coming together in particular sorts of ways to create something harmonious and symphonic and beautiful. And what I really would love is to see that people could imagine their bodies, not just as physical lumps moving around other lumps, but as a kind of acoustical phenomenon in which you can hear the vibrations of the world vibrating through your own body, whether through your singing or through your activism that you feel that it's not just you anymore, that you are, in your embodied living and acting, giving voice to a world much greater, much bigger, much more complex than yourself.”

“People are at their happiest when they feel that they're in the flow of what's happening... I describe creativity as our participation, our improvisational participation, in the world's unfolding of itself. And, you know, we can give lots of variations on that theme because we can be participating in the unfolding of a family's life, or in a neighborhood’s life, or a farm field’s life, or a classroom's life. I mean, all these ways of entering into the flow are available to us. And when we give ourselves to what's potentially there, beauties are waiting there to be uncovered.”