This week in Christian history: Isaac Watts born, Tammy Faye Bakker dies, papal infallibility

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, July 17, 2022

Isaac Watts born – July 17, 1674

This week marks the anniversary of when Isaac Watts, the author of such famous hymns as “Joy to the World,” “We’re Marching to Zion,” “Jesus Shall Reign” and “O God Our Help in Ages Past” was born in Southampton, Hampshire, England.

The son of a Nonconformist, which was someone who opposed certain aspects of the Church of England, Watts would be educated at Dissenting Academy at Stoke Newington, London.

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A preacher and tutor, Watts is most known for his hymns, having written many songs that remain in use in the English-speaking Protestant Christian world to this day.

“Watts's influence on American religious music was immense,” noted Encyclopedia.com. “They influenced African American as well as European American sacred song, and the very name of the chief religious music of African American Christianity under slavery, the spiritual, was likely taken from the title of one of his printed works.”