THIS MONTH'S WTF AWARD

...goes to the English clergy who get their rocks off of bastardizing the texts of the tried, tested, and true Christmas carols.

Story from The Telegraph / RSCT to Argent (who gets a million points for proper use of the phrase "Idiots on Parade") / Snarky remarks mine.

Enduring favourites such as Hark the Herald Angels Sing and God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen are being altered by clergy to make them more "modern and inclusive".

But churchgoers say there is no need to change the popular carols and complain that the result is a "festive car crash" if not everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.

It comes just a day after a Church of England vicar banned his congregation from singing O Little Town of Bethlehem because he believed its words do not reflect the suffering endured by modern residents of Jesus's birthplace.

Another clergyman has rewritten the Twelve Days of Christmas to include Aids victims, drug addicts and hoodies.

Tell him to save it for the next support group meeting. He'll need all the support he can get after that!

Steve Goddard, co-editor of the Christian website Ship of Fools, which is running a competition to find the worst example of a rewritten carol, said: "It's a festive car crash.

"Half the congregation sing familiar words from memory, while the rest stumble over revised alternatives. Our readers are telling us straight – for some new versions there should be no room at the inn."

Among the "theologically-modified, politically-corrected" carols encountered by visitors to the website are Hark the Herald Angels Sing in which the line "Glory to the newborn King" has been replaced by "Glory to the Christ child, bring".

WTF? Christ is no longer a King? He sure as hell isn't a queen, nor a jack for that matter. So that leaves the King.

The well-known refrain of O Come All Ye Faithful – "O come let us adore Him" – has also been changed in one church to "O come in adoration", both changes apparently made for fear the original was sexist.

"[One reader] wrote in asking if the original line was considered too gender-specific," Mr Goddard said. "But as he rightly pointed out, Jesus wasn't hermaphrodite, neither was he a girl."

But yet, certain clergy want to castrate him, and probably wish to be castrated themselves.

Churchgoers at one carol service will not be allowed to sing the words "all in white" during Once in Royal David's City in case they appear racist, while another cleric has removed the word "virgin" from God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.

Click here for another alteration of God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen that was made last year, exclusively for Christus Vincit ANYWHERE (so yes, the alteration was, and still is, merely a joke). It was intended for a segment called Don't Do This at Church!

Real men don't bastardize Christmas carols, except for comic purposes that is!
Peace,
BMP