Witnessing America's growing divides and declining civility, Grammy-winning artist Steven Curtis Chapman has reimagined "America the Beautiful" with new verses, collaborating with Chris Janson to offer a powerful message for our modern...



Not long ago, Steven Curtis Chapman found himself burdened by how much America had changed since his youth – the growing divisions, the decline of civility, and the fading sense of gratitude. So Chapman did what he has done throughout much of his career when wrestling with life’s biggest questions: He wrote a song.

That song, a new rendition of America the Beautiful, includes the familiar lyrics while adding several new verses he hopes will resonate with a modern audience.

Those new lines reference algorithms that “try to keep us worlds apart” and the “battle-lines that we have drawn,” before urging Americans to recognize “we really all in this thing together” and to embrace the art of listening, a biblical concept: “I know we never will agree on everything; it's like a song we've all got different parts to sing; and how well we listen is how loud freedom will ring in America.”

Country singer Chris Janson collaborated with Chapman on it.

“I grew up blessed to have a very healthy love and appreciation for our nation, for our freedoms that we enjoy,” Chapman told Crosswalk Headlines.

Much of that appreciation came from his grandfather, Rubel Rudd, a World War II veteran.

“He was a Purple Heart, World War II vet, came home and lived his life out with shrapnel in his leg,” Chapman said. “So I just had this great appreciation for the freedom, the cost of freedom, the gift that we have in America – as broken and as imperfect as it is.”

Chapman has also traveled the world and developed an even deeper appreciation for America's freedoms after visiting nations where Christians do not enjoy the freedom to worship openly.

But it was America's growing divisions that ultimately inspired the song.

“I'm just heartbroken as I start to see how much division has been created,” he said, noting there was a time in his life when gratitude for America was widespread.

Chapman laughed at his inclusion of “algorithm” in the song – a word that doesn't exactly lend itself to songwriting – but said it was important to include because it “just keeps feeding the idea of us versus them.” Those algorithms, he said, should prompt people to examine their own news consumption and ask themselves whether they're being manipulated by the constant stream of online outrage: “Am I being kind of duped a little bit by all the things that I'm being told?”

“We only have so much energy, and I just don't want to spend mine arguing. I want to fight against the right things – I want to be angry about the right things.”

The song, he said, is ultimately a call to gratitude and kindness – and a reminder that Americans can choose communications over constant conflict.

“The greatest wisdom is to bear with one another in love, to listen to one another, to always be gentle,” he said.

Chapman hopes the song encourages listeners to see their freedom not simply as a privilege, but as a responsibility.

“I feel like God has graced America with a freedom – and with that a responsibility,” he said. “My hope and my prayer would be that it just might cause us to lay down the weapons.

“Even though [America is] not perfect, and it certainly ain't heaven, and America is not God's favorite nation – it is a place that He has shed his grace. He has given us this time in our lives to celebrate the freedom that we have, and to use it as best as we can, with what we've been entrusted.”

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