by Sharon Lindbloom
9 October 2024

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been revising its hymnbook. This multi-year project was announced in 2018, with a target completion date of 2030. A few months ago the church began digitally releasing of some of the new hymnbook’s songs, planning to roll them out in small batches every few months. In September (2024) nine new additions to the hymnbook were released, one of them, “Amazing Grace,” garnered a fair amount of media attention.

As reported in The Salt Lake Tribune, “Amazing Grace” “ranked among the top requests from LDS members for inclusion in the new songbook.” This song has been greatly loved and joyfully proclaimed in Christian worship since John Newton wrote the text in 1772 — a fact attested by its inclusion in 1,434 hymnals over the years. But it hasn’t been included in a Mormon hymnbook since Emma Smith’s 1841 collection of hymns “fell out of favor” in the church.

It’s no wonder that Mormons would long for the amazing message proclaimed in “Amazing Grace,” for it speaks of Newton’s own amazement over the undeserved mercy, salvation, and grace his loving God extended to him, “the worst of sinners.” As Bill McKeever notes, 

“Newton saw God’s grace as something that was definitely undeserved, an act of God bestowed upon a sinner that once and for all declared a believer justified in the eyes of God. What made grace so incomprehensible to Newton was that nothing could be added to it to bring about the justification that was sought.” (“What is so amazing about the Mormon version of Grace?”)

It’s stunning for each of us, Mormon and non-Mormon alike, to recognize that God, by His amazing grace, would save “a wretch like me.” That truth fills us with awe and gives us boundless hope and peace.

But this is not the sense in which the LDS church understands and includes “Amazing Grace” in its updated hymnal. I’m confident in saying this for at least two reasons. One is that LDS leaders have freely mocked the biblical Christian doctrine that a person is saved by grace alone. One example of the Mormon disdain for this doctrine can be found in this statement by 12^th LDS President Spencer W. Kimball:

“One of the most fallacious doctrines originated by Satan and propounded by man is that man is saved alone by the grace of God; that belief in Jesus Christ alone is all that is needed for salvation.” (The Miracle of Forgiveness, 206. See also The Book of Mormon Student Manual Religion 121 and 122, 1989, 36)

Surely the LDS church does not intend, by including Amazing Grace in its hymnbook, to promote what it believes is a “fallacious doctrine originated by Satan.” 

My second reason concerns the Book of Mormon text the church has included in support of the song’s text. The tradition of including scriptural support for any given hymn is found in many hymnals. In the one my church uses, for example, John 9:25 is referenced (and quoted) beneath the title of “Amazing Grace”: “One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!” LDS hymnals have not typically included supportive scripture references in the past, but this new hymnbook is different. For “Amazing Grace,” one of the two texts the church references is Moroni 10:32-33, a Book of Mormon passage that presents an if/then scenario for receiving God’s grace. Verse 32 says,

“Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.”

An LDS Teacher’s Manual explains the meaning of this Book of Mormon passage:

“All people, regardless of their level of righteousness, will be saved from death because of the Resurrection of Christ. However, in order to attain the highest degree of glory in the resurrection, we need to ‘come unto Christ, and be perfected in him’ (Moroni 10:32). We come unto Christ by having faith in him, repenting of our sins, being baptized, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, receiving other saving priesthood ordinances, obeying the commandments, and keeping the covenants we make with our Heavenly Father.” (Preparing for Exaltation Teacher’s Manual (1998), 39)

While Mormonism recognizes a sort of undeserved universal grace that provides for all people to be resurrected from death, it does not hold to a doctrine of undeserved grace for salvation; that is, the gift of God, freely forgiving a person’s sins and granting them eternal life in His presence. As Christian theologian Michael Horton explains,

“…Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. God does not give us the grace to save ourselves with his aid. He declares us righteous the moment we give up our own claims to righteousness and our own struggles for divine approval and recognize the sufficiency of Christ’s righteousness as our own.” (Michael Horton, Putting Amazing Back into Grace, 13)

This is the salvation that God promises us in His Word. But according to Mormonism, God merely gives us the grace to save ourselves, with His conditional help. That is, if a person is able to overcome their sins by their own power, and receive all the LDS saving ordinances, and obey the commandments, and keep all their covenants, then God’s grace is available to them. As explained in an article published in the church’s Ensignmagazine, 

“The perfect relationship between the atoning grace of Christ and the obedient efforts of mankind is powerfully stated by Nephi: ‘We know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do’ (2 Nephi 25:23). Furthermore, we are invited to ‘come unto Christ, and be perfected in him.’ When we deny ourselves ‘of all ungodliness,’ then and only ‘then is his grace sufficient’ for us (Moroni 10:32).” (Clyde J. Williams, “Plain and Precious Truths Restored,” Ensign, 10/2006, 53. Emphasis added.)

By tying Moroni 10:32 to “Amazing Grace” in the new hymnbook, the LDS church is clarifying that the “grace” Mormons will sing about is not the unconditional grace that John Newton wrote about. Inclusion of the song in the hymnal may be new, but the LDS doctrine of “conditional” redemption based on “obedience to all other requirements of the gospel” remains the same (see Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation 2:10). 

John Newton believed what God tells us in the Bible: “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy” (Romans 9:16). This is why Newton, and Christians through the ages, have been continually, joyfully, and overwhelmingly amazed by God’s grace.

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