While researching the life of Richard Johnson, Australia’s first chaplain, I’ve been surprised and delighted to discover the weighty contribution John Newton made to Australian Christianity.

Newton, along with his friend William Wilberforce, was responsible for establishing the first chaplaincy in New South Wales, and he personally chose Johnson for the role.

Newton’s involvement did not stop once Johnson had sailed. New South Wales was much on his mind, and he worked tirelessly to help the new chaplain. He raised funds, printed tracts, lobbied influential persons, and spent years trying to recruit an assistant for Johnson’s ministry. He also acted as Johnson’s mentor and comfortor, and wrote numerous letters to the chaplain containing words of encouragement and exhortation.

It has been my great pleasure to read through these letters, and I’ve been struck time and again by their elegance, wisdom and evangelical heart. Here is a sample, written at a time when Johnson was depressed by the subdued response to his preaching -

I have not been disheartened by your apparent want of success. I have been told that skilful gardeners will undertake to sow and raise a salad for dinner in the short time while the meat is roasting. But no gardener can raise oaks with such expedition. You are sent to New Holland, not to sow salad seeds, but to plant acorns; and your labor will not be lost, though the first appearances may be very small, and the progress very slow. You are, I trust, planting for the next century. I have a good hope that your oaks will one day spring up and flourish, and produce other acorns, which, in due time, will take root, and spread among the islands and nations in the Southern Ocean.

Newton is truly an evangelical for the ages, and he remains a great example for modern Christian leaders.

I’m so pleased to discover this connection, and it’s not too much to say that Newton was the godfather of Australian Christianity, and Sydney Anglicanism in particular.

I know our churches have their problems, but I rather suspect Newton would be pleased with what we have become, and would feel that his “acorns” had indeed grown into tall, straight oaks.