Unique 'Amazing Grace' performance gets blasted by religious viewers

“The challenge of the song is to not scare America. I'm changing ‘Amazing Grace,’ everybody. Fair warning.” So said Team Kelly’s 16-year-old blues ingenue Sarah Grace on Monday’s top 10 The Voice episode. Religious songs usually are popular on The Voice -- last week, when Kymberli Joye did Tasha Cobbs’s “Break Every Chain,” she was the top-charting contestant on iTunes -- but most contestants don’t take as many creative liberties as Sarah did this week. Besides playing “dirty” trumpet, Sarah also sang the traditional hymn with the “House of the Rising Sun” production underneath it -- basically, she did a skronky “Amazing Grace”/”Rising Sun” mashup.

“This idea is the coolest idea that anyone I ever worked with on The Voice has ever come to the table with,” said Sarah’s coach, Kelly Clarkson. “This is an insanely cool version of ‘Amazing Grace.’ It's my favorite I've ever heard.” “I love how this displays your confidence, to be able to take ‘Amazing Grace’ and make it your own and do something different with it and to use this moment to display your talents,” raved Jennifer Hudson. “That was extremely smart. It was beautiful.” We totally agreed with Kelly and Jennifer. Grace's "Grace" was indeed amazing. But not all of America (and by “America,” I mean “Twitter”) was impressed. “Sad to hear Sarah Grace on The Voice singing our beloved hymn ‘Amazing Grace’ to the tune of the honky-tonk song ‘House of the Rising Sun’! She did play a trumpet and the worldly world will vote for her, but not me!! Praying her out of the competition,” tweeted was irate viewer who found Sarah's interpretation downright blasphemous. “I don’t want to stand beside her when she sings a Christian song to the tune of the Devil,” posted another. “’Amazing Grace’ is not meant to be disrespected like that. Haven’t missed a season but this maybe my last,” read another angry tweet.