Only a Sinner Saved by Amazing Grace: The Story of Doug Ekbom and the Birth of Newton

Newton, an oratorio by Minneapolis-based composer Josh Bauder, marks the 300^th birthday of Christian minister and abolitionist John Newton, author of the beloved hymn, Amazing Grace. It weaves the story of the slaver Newton with the lives of William Cowper—a depressed poet—and Thomas Scott—a self-righteous minister who poses as Newton’s nemesis.

Yet a fourth man is intricately connected with these three, although his life ended only a few short years ago. His name is Doug Ekbom, and like Newton, he lived the life of a prodigal who experienced God’s amazing grace.

Doug was a miracle child, born to parents Greg and Eva after 14 years of infertility. He gave his life to the Lord at seven, grew up in the church, and attended a Christian college before heading into the world.

But in 2011, Doug’s mother collapsed from an intracranial bleed from a ruptured brain aneurysm. Although initially beginning to recover, she died in her husband’s arms shortly after, but not before she repeatedly testified to her husband, “God is GOOD, Greg!”

Although an adult at the time of her death, Doug joined the ranks of Cowper and Newton as a motherless child, the latter two having each lost their maternal guides at age six. For all three men, that loss was the first domino in the downward spiral on which they eventually embarked.

Newton took to the sea, became a drunken rebel, and was eventually imprisoned.

Cowper’s father turned his son’s childish thoughts to suicide, while a variety of disappointments—including the loss of the woman he loved—kept him in a regular state of depression and mental anguish.

And thanks to a car accident three months after his mother’s death, Doug wrestled with chronic pain, turning to alcohol, drugs, and eventually theft to deal with his depression and troubles. Like Newton, Doug had become the drunken prodigal, landing in jail. Like Cowper, Doug endured great personal losses, driving him to the lowest point in his life. But unlike Cowper, Doug had a father who demonstrated the tough but gentle love of His Heavenly Father.

“I’m not going to bail you out, and I’m not going to give you some high-powered attorney,” Greg recalls telling Doug when the latter landed in jail. Although indifferent at the time, Doug later told his father, “Dad, thanks for leaving me in the jail, that’s when I repented and came back to the Lord.”

Doug still struggled, however, and as he told Greg once, “I’m just a Christ-follower, Dad, who’s just floundering.”

Doug would encounter one of his greatest crises when a blood clot landed him in the hospital, eventually causing him to lose both legs at the knee. His father—ironically a surgeon who performed many amputations over his career—got to experience the other side as he took care of his now disabled son. Yet as the two wrestled through disability and prosthetics, a new ministry was born. Doug asked to join Greg on a mission trip to Africa, during which he, as an amputee, was able to testify to the Lord’s goodness and help fit prosthetics for 70 arm amputees.

This work continues today—not only in Africa, but in the Middle East and Ukraine—through LimbFit, a non-profit Greg founded after his son tragically passed away in 2019. LimbFit exists not only to bring prosthetics and medical services to those in need, but to share the love, forgiveness, and hope that is found only in Jesus Christ.

In his grief, Greg took comfort in finding a journal from his son, which testified to the love, kindness, and grace that Doug experienced from both his Heavenly Father and his earthly father. But Greg still wrestled, crying out to God, clinging to Him with weak and battered faith.

Challenged by his pastor to hang on to God and His promises, Greg began asking the Lord to give him a daily song to sing back to Him in praise. “And He’s given me a song every day,” Greg says. “And that’s why Josh Bauder has been so critical in my journey because he’s always giving me a song. The songs we sing in church? I sing them all week.”

Two years ago, this connection caused Greg to approach Josh, asking, “Josh, would you ever do an oratorio on the prodigal son in memory of Doug?”

“And he came back to me and said, ‘It’s too short,’” Greg recalls. “But then he said, ‘You know, I’ve been thinking about this, and the timing is perfect because it’s the 300^th anniversary of the birth of John Newton, and he was a prodigal.’”

And thus Newton was born, telling the story of how God can save the wicked man, the hopeless man, the arrogant man, and any sinner—all by His amazing grace.

As for Greg, he is waiting with anticipation for this latest song from Josh. “Can you imagine the joy that I have in looking up into … the choir, the orchestra, and hearing [them] proclaim God’s goodness?” he says of hearing the premiere performance of Newton. “It’s just overwhelming to me, and I give all glory to the God of all grace!”