Joy to the world, for peace shall come, let this be our refrain!
Um, no thanks. I prefer the not-politically-correct version with its pronouncement that “the Lord” is come. “Let Earth receive her King.”
But I am apparently out of step with the times (something I’ve known for quite a while) as Ship of Fools explains:
We’ve all noticed the “new” words, grimaced, tried to remember what the original lines were, shaken our heads in bemusement, and politely carried on singing. Theologically-modified carols will ring out everywhere this year. Innocents like king, man, son, virgin and Lord have been slaughtered to make carols more modern and inclusive. In some cases, entire verses have been re-written.
Some of our Christian brothers (yeah, okay, sisters too) are trying to make sure we don’t offend others, or even each other, with anything that might suggest we actually believe all that traditional mumbo-jumbo.
So “O, come let us adore Him” becomes “O, come in adoration.” Precisely what or whom we come to adore – well, who’s to say? Everyone can simply fill in the blank for himself – or herself – or theirselves.
“When like stars his children crowned / All in white shall wait around.” White? We can’t have that. Whether it implies racism or chastity is hard to say, but we wouldn’t want to encourage either. And so we have the bland and colorless: “Where his children gather round / Bright like stars, with glory crowned.”
And of course if you can’t have chastity, you certainly can’t have virginity, as in “This day is born a Saviour / Of a pure Virgin bright.” The mystery is removed in favor of the straightforward birth announcement: “To you is born a Saviour / In David’s town tonight.” Cigar, anyone?
The state’s war on Christmas, misguided though it is, has some rational basis. The state simply misconstrues the law.
The stores that want to sanitize Chrismas, on the other hand, are working against their own interests. Cultural traditions can be co-opted for secular and commercial purposes, but the stores make a serious mistake when they start watering down the occasion that causes people to open up their wallets. They misunderstand human nature.
But churches that join the secular parade take self-defeatism to its ultimate heights. Oops, can’t say “ultimate”; probably can’t say “heights.” Let’s just say they got it wrong. All of it.
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