Grace and the Governor of South Carolina
By Leander S. Harding
A while back I wrote a little piece on my blog about how important Bluegrass and Gospel songs were to me. One of my friends read the piece. My friend summers in a community with a famous Christian retreat center and can hear the hymns every day, which my friend deeply enjoys except for Amazing Grace which is not a favorite because of the line, “saved a wretch like me.” My friend says this line ” is kind of a downer.” It is a common reaction and especially among many of us who have been manipulated as children by parents and religious leaders who know how to give guilt, the gift that keeps on giving. Particularly in the mainline churches there has been for several decades a move away from phrases such as “a wretch like me,” or the words from the old Book of Common Prayer, “we are miserable sinners and there is no health in us.”