Containing a message that forgiveness and redemption are possible regardless of sins committed and that the soul can be delivered from despair through the mercy of God, " Amazing Grace " is one of the most recognizable songs in the English-speaking world.

" Amazing Grace " was written to illustrate a sermon on New Year's Day of 1773.

In the United States however, " Amazing Grace " was used extensively during the Second Great Awakening in the early 19th century.

Author Gilbert Chase writes that " Amazing Grace " is " without a doubt the most famous of all the folk hymns ," and Jonathan Aitken, a Newton biographer, estimates that it is performed about 10 million times annually.

" Amazing Grace " saw a resurgence in popularity in the U. S. during the 1960s and has been recorded thousands of times during and since the 20th century, occasionally appearing on popular music charts.

According to the Dictionary of American Hymnology, " Amazing Grace " is John Newton's spiritual autobiography in verse.

The greatest influences in the 19th century that propelled " Amazing Grace " to spread across the U. S. and become a staple of religious services in many denominations and regions were the Second Great Awakening and the development of shape note singing communities.

" Amazing Grace " was one of many hymns that punctuated fervent sermons, although the contemporary style used a refrain, borrowed from other hymns, that employed simplicity and repetition such as:

William Walker ( composer ) | William Walker, the composer who first joined John Newton's verses to " New Britain ", to create the song that has become " Amazing Grace "

Common meter hymns were interchangeable with a variety of tunes ; more than twenty musical settings of " Amazing Grace " circulated with varying popularity until 1835 when William Walker assigned Newton's words to a traditional song named " New Britain ", which was itself an amalgamation of two melodies (" Gallaher " and " St. Mary ") first published in the Columbian Harmony by Charles H. Spilman and Benjamin Shaw ( Cincinnati, 1829 ).

" Amazing Grace ", with the words written by Newton and joined with " New Britain ", the melody most currently associated with it, appeared for the first time in Walker's shape note tunebook Southern Harmony in 1847.

" Amazing Grace " came to be an emblem of a religious movement and a symbol of the U. S. itself as the country was involved in a great political experiment, attempting to employ democracy as a means of government.

" Amazing Grace " set to " New Britain " was included in two hymnals distributed to soldiers and with death so real and imminent, religious services in the military became commonplace.

Although " Amazing Grace " set to " New Britain " was popular, other versions existed regionally.

Primitive Baptists in the Appalachian region often used " New Britain " with other hymns, and sometimes sing the words of " Amazing Grace " to other folk songs, including titles such as " In the Pines ", " Pisgah ", " Primrose ", and " Evan ", as all are able to be sung in common meter, of which the majority of their repertoire consists.

Moody and Sankey began publishing their compositions in 1875, and " Amazing Grace " appeared three times with three different melodies, but they were the first to give it its title ; hymns were typically published using the first line of the lyrics, or the name of the tune such as " New Britain ".

A publisher named Edwin Othello Excell gave the version of " Amazing Grace " set to " New Britain " immense popularity by publishing it in a series of hymnals that were used in urban churches.

Several editions featuring Newton's first three stanzas and the verse previously included by Harriet Beecher Stowe in Uncle Tom's Cabin were published by Excell between 1900 and 1910, and his version of " Amazing Grace " became the standard form of the song in American churches.

With the advent of recorded music and radio, " Amazing Grace " began to cross over from primarily a gospel standard to secular audiences.

The ability to record combined with the marketing of records to specific audiences allowed " Amazing Grace " to take on thousands of different forms in the 20th century.

Where Edwin Othello Excell sought to make the singing of " Amazing Grace " uniform throughout thousands of churches, records allowed artists to improvise with the words and music specific to each audience.

" Amazing Grace " is emblematic of several kinds of folk music styles, often used as the standard example to illustrate such musical techniques as lining out and call and response, that have been practiced in both black and white folk music.

Mahalia Jackson employed " Amazing Grace " for Civil Rights marchers, writing that she used it " to give magical protection — a charm to ward off danger, an incantation to the angels of heaven to descend ...

" Folk singer Judy Collins, who knew the song before she could remember learning it, witnessed Fannie Lou Hamer leading marchers in Mississippi in 1964, singing " Amazing Grace ".

It is referenced in the 2006 film Amazing Grace, which highlights Newton's influence on the leading British abolitionist William Wilberforce.

Bruce Hindmarsh suggests that the secular popularity of " Amazing Grace " is due to the absence of any mention of God in the lyrics until the fourth verse ( by Excell's version, the fourth verse begins " When we've been there ten thousand years "), and that the song represents the ability of humanity to transform itself instead of a transformation taking place at the hands of God.

James Basker also acknowledged this force when he explained why he chose " Amazing Grace " to represent a collection of anti-slavery poetry: " there is a transformative power that is applicable ...: the transformation of sin and sorrow into grace, of suffering into beauty, of alienation into empathy and connection, of the unspeakable into imaginative literature.

The science-fiction editor Gardner Dozois is generally acknowledged as the person who popularized the use of the term " cyberpunk " as a kind of literature, although Minnesota writer Bruce Bethke coined the term in 1980 for his short story " Cyberpunk ," which was published in the November 1983 issue of Amazing Science Fiction Stories.

Owing to the breadth of her accomplishments and her naval rank, she is sometimes referred to as " Amazing Grace.

As examples of the distinction, " Amazing Grace " is a hymn ( no refrain ), but " How Great Thou Art " is a gospel song.

His book The Amazing Book of Mazes ( 2006 ) contains examples and photographs of numerous methods of maze construction, several of which have been pioneered by Fisher ; The Art of the Maze ( Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1990 ) contains a substantial history of the subject, whilst Mazes and Labyrinths ( Shire Publications, 2004 ) is a useful introduction to the subject.

Today around six of the original 348 Olney Hymns regularly feature in modern church worship, the most famous of which is " Amazing Grace ".

For example, the tune ' Austria ' ( originally Haydn's ' Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser ') is associated today with the hymn ' Glorious things of thee are spoken ', just as ' New Britain ' an American folk melody, believed to be Scottish or Irish in origin ; has since the 1830s been associated with ' Amazing grace '.

In the Making The Amazing documentary on the Spider-Man 2 DVD, both Tobey Maguire and Bruce Campbell jokingly describe Raimi's penchant for " abusing " actors: In order to get realistic closeups of a character getting hit by debris, Raimi usually stands just off-camera throwing items, swinging tree branches, etc., at the actor who is at the center of the shot.

In the opening moments of Kraven the Hunter's level when Amazing Spider-Man is investigating Kraven's trophy room, there were several stuffed and mounted heads of Dinosaurs in the trophy room.

Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends is an American animated television series produced by Marvel Productions starring established Marvel Comics characters Spider-Man and Iceman and an original character, Firestar.

After that is a Mini Marvel tale titled Spider-Man And His Amazing < del > Friends </ del > Co-Workers ( note that the strikethrough of " Friends " was a deliberate inclusion in the title ).

An arc in Ultimate Spider-Man is titled " Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends " and issue # 118's cover, showing Spider-Man, Iceman and Firestar, is a homage to the series title screen.

* In the 1984 Movie Missing In Action with Chuck Norris, an episode of Spider-man and his Amazing Friends is shown on TV.

Centerpiece attractions include a Ferris wheel, an IMAX theater, the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Amazing Chicago's Funhouse Maze, the Chicago Children's Museum, the Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows, and at the entrance to Navy Pier is a statue of Oak Park comedian Bob Newhart, sponsored by the TV Land network.

The 1982 science fiction film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan used " Amazing Grace " amid a context of Christian symbolism, to memorialize the death of Mr. Spock but more practically, because the song has become " instantly recognizable to many in the audience as music that sounds appropriate for a funeral " according to a Star Trek scholar.

* Amazing Grace Christian Academy

Many religious broadcasting networks and stations exist, also surviving on viewer contributions and time leased to the programming producers, including Trinity Broadcasting Network, Three Angels Broadcasting Network, Hope Channel, Amazing Facts Television, Daystar Television Network, The Word Network, The Worship Network, Total Christian Television, and INSP.

* Christian broadcasters such as The Word Network, Emmanuel TV, Daystar Television Network, JCTV, Trinity Broadcasting Network, The Church Channel, 3ABN, The Hope Channel, Amazing Facts Television, God's Learning Channel are broadcast from the Galaxy 19 ( 97 ° W ) satellite for Glorystar and Spiritcast Satellite Systems TV.

* Eli Levitt mocks the Christian hymn Amazing Grace by changing the first line into " A Mimezine grace ".

Two of his books have won the ECPA's Christian Book of the Year Award: The Jesus I Never Knew in 1996, What's So Amazing About Grace in 1998.

Amazing Love is the fifth album in the Worship series of Christian Contemporary music by Hillsong Church.

* So Amazing ( Planetshakers album ), 2001 live album by Australian Christian rock band Planetshakers