A music teacher claimed that Christmas carols are being rewritten to make them politically correct, Nic Robinson was surprised to find the words to Hark! The Herald Angels Sing had been changed to be ‘gender-inclusive’ by removing the words ‘man’, ‘men’ and ‘sons’.Attending a carol service at his 13-year-old daughter Hannah’s school, he noticed that in verse two, the line ‘Pleased as man with man to dwell’ was changed to ‘Pleased with us in flesh to dwell’ on the printed sheet. In the next verse, the lines ‘Born that man no more may die, Born to raise the sons of Earth, Born to give them second birth’ were changed to ‘Born that we no more may die, Born to raise us from the earth, Born to give us second birth’.
Mr Robinson age 45, of Little over, Derby, said: ‘It’s completely unnecessary. I don’t know any women who feel belittled by the use of the word ‘man’ or ‘son’. ‘Nowadays, there is a section of society that says everything has to conform to this bizarre gender-inclusive business.
‘It’s such a shame that things which are so well established are being changed for no reason at all. It makes me angry because I love the traditions around Christmas and the Church.
‘Some people only go to church at Christmas and if they find the words have been mucked about with, they will feel more disenfranchised than usual.’ Mr Robinson said he did not know who changed the words, or which book of carols they were taken from. A survey carried out by satirical Christian website Ship of Fools found that many churches now sing ‘Glory to the Christ child, bring’ rather than ‘Glory to the newborn King’ in the same carol.
And some churches have changed/replaced the words to Once In Royal David’s City, removing a reference to children ‘all in white’ and replacing it with ‘bright-like stars’.
