How difficult would it be to make our hymns gender-neutral? If I could make one change to our hymnal, I’m with Mike C. in this 2014 post: this is the change I’d make. Incidentally, I would also be in favor of making our scriptures gender-neutral, but I expect modifying the hymns would be a much easier sell at this point (not that either is likely to happen soon). My reasoning is the same in either case. As it’s become less acceptable and less common in the world in general for words like “man” to be used to refer to humanity in general, women’s experience at church becomes more and more of a contrast with the rest of their lives. Virtually every reading of scripture and many singing of hymns just emphasizes again to women how unimportant, how peripheral, they are in the Church. Of course I’d rather we changed the actual structure of the Church to make women more equal, but while that’s not happening, modifying our hymns would be a good step.
There’s even precedent for gender-neutralizing hymns, at least a little. Douglas Campbell documents in this 1995 Dialogue article that in the update to the current 1985 hymnal from its predecessor, a few hymns had some of their language changed from gender-exclusive to gender-neutral. Still, I realize that such changes are unlikely to be made wholesale. I can’t imagine Presidents Nelson or Oaks signing off on such changes, for example. Perhaps in a few more decades when we get our next new hymnal, the GAs of the day might consider it.
In this post, I’m going to look at a very mundane question that has always kind of lurked in the back of my mind on this topic. If we actually did want to change the language of our hymns to make them gender-neutral, how difficult would it be? I looked at 20% the hymns in our current hymnal (all hymn numbers that are evenly divisible by five, so 68 of the 341) and tried my hand at rewriting the gender-exclusive words into gender-neutral words. My goal was just to see how easy or difficult the exercise was.
First, I made a list of all the gender-exclusive words in these 68 hymns. There are 379 in total, or about five and a half per hymn. Most of them, though, are references to Jesus or God (e.g., Father, Son, Lord, and King). I’m not considering these types of usages. I’m only interested in gender-exclusive words that refer to people in general, or to Church members. This table shows the breakdown of the 379 words.
It’s just the 55 words from the second and fourth rows, then, that I attempted to gender-neutralize. All but two of the 55 are male gender-specific words. To be complete, I tried to gender-neutralize them all, male or female. One other note, in case anyone is ever interested enough to try to retrace my steps: if a word occurs multiple times in a hymn because a line is repeated (like in a chorus), I count each repeat as a separate instance.
As you might guess, some gender-exclusive words are more difficult to rewrite than others, depending on factors like whether they’re part of the hymn’s rhyme scheme or not. I classified the 55 words into four categories depending on how involved my rewrite was. In increasing level of difficulty, they are word swap (replace one word with another), minor rewrite (same as word swap, but with at least one other word altered in support), major rewrite (changing a line in a larger way), and multi-line rewrite. I’ll show them here in order by decreasing level, since the major rewrite examples are the most interesting. They really show how hard this exercise could be at its most difficult.
I’m far from a music expert, so I won’t be surprised if you disagree with the details of my rewrites. I’m happy to hear your critiques or alternatives in the comments. What I’m most interested in here, though, is how difficult the exercise is, and whether you agree with me on the level of rewrite I’ve done. Overall, while a few hymns were somewhat difficult to change, I feel like it’s more doable than I had feared. And, as you’ll see, the majority of the changes are in the word swap and minor rewrite categories.
Multi-line Rewrite
| Hymn | Actual lines | Revised lines |
|---|---|---|
| Now We’ll Sing with One Accord | And an angel surely then, For a blessing unto men, |
And an angel acted thus, For a blessing unto us, |
| How Firm a Foundation | The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose I will not, I cannot, desert to his foes; That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, |
The souls that on Jesus have leaned for repose I will not, I cannot, desert to their foes; Those souls, though all hell should endeavor to shake, |
| Did You Think to Pray? | Did you plead for grace, my brother, That you might forgive another |
Did you plead for grace, a godsend, That you might forgive a past friend |
| Prayer Is the Soul’s Sincere Desire | Prayer is the Christian’s vital breath, The Christian’s native air, His watchword at the gates of death; He enters heav’n with prayer. |
Prayer is our Christian vital breath, And ’tis our native air, Our watchword at the gates of death; We enter heav’n with prayer. |
| Prayer Is the Soul’s Sincere Desire | Prayer is the contrite sinner’s voice, Returning from his ways, While angels in their songs rejoice And cry, “Behold, he prays!” |
Prayer is the contrite sinner’s voice, Escaping Satan’s snare, While angels in their songs rejoice The penitent’s true prayer. |
| We Have Partaken of Thy Love | Let us go forth refreshed, resolved To serve our fellowmen, Forgive our neighbors, live thy word, Until we come again, Until we come again. |
Let us go forth refreshed, resolved To suff’ring not ignore, Forgive our neighbors, live thy word, Until we come once more, Until we come once more. |
| Know This, That Every Soul Is Free | Freedom and reason make us men; Take these away, what are we then? |
As humans we can think, are free; Take these away, what would we be? |
You can see that I tried to make the smallest change I could, and to preserve the existing meaning to the degree that I could. In some, like “How Firm a Foundation,” my revision here extends across multiple lines, but only to make the pluralization from “his” to “their” consistent. It’s actually a fairly minor change. There are definitely instances in the next category where I’ve made larger changes, even though the changes are confined to a single line.
Major Rewrite
Note that I’ve added an extra line for context for these ones, but my rewrites are only within a single line.
| Hymn | Actual lines | Revised lines |
|---|---|---|
| I Saw a Mighty Angel Fly | A message bearing from on high To cheer the sons of day. |
A message bearing from on high Of cheer in latter day. |
| Arise, O Glorious Zion | And Saints, the message bringing To all the sons of men, |
And Saints, the message bringing To all who lost have been, |
| O God, the Eternal Father | That sacred, holy off’ring, By man least understood, |
That sacred, holy off’ring, It turns from bad to good, |
Minor Rewrite
For these last two categories, I’m only showing the line in which I made revisions.
| Hymn | Actual line | Revised line |
|---|---|---|
| Now We’ll Sing with One Accord | God’s commandments to mankind, | God’s commands to humankind, |
| For the Strength of the Hills | Our God, our fathers’ God; | Our God, beloved God; |
| Battle Hymn of the Republic | He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat. | He is sifting out his people’s hearts before his judgment seat. |
| Battle Hymn of the Republic | As he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free, | As his death makes mortals holy, let our life make mortals free, |
| Master, the Tempest Is Raging | Or demons or men or whatever it be, | Or demons or mortals, whatever it be, |
| Christ the Lord Is Risen Today | Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia! | Mortals call and angels say, Alleluia! |
| Ring Out, Wild Bells | Ring in the valiant men and free, | Ring in the valiant mortals free, |
| This House We Dedicate to Thee | Our God, our fathers’ God. | Our God, beloved God. |
| This House We Dedicate to Thee | Here may our sons and daughters come | Here future generations come |
| Carry On | On the rock our fathers planted | On the rock ancestors planted |
| Men Are That They Might Have Joy | Oh, “men are that they might have joy.” | Oh, we are that we might have joy. |
| Men Are That They Might Have Joy | For He would not that men should pine. | For He would not that mortals pine. |
| Men Are That They Might Have Joy | For “men are that they might have joy.” | For we are that we might have joy. |
| Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee | O Savior of mankind! | Savior of humankind! |
| See, the Mighty Angel Flying | Hear, O men, the proclamation; | Hear the proclamation, mortals; |
| The Star-Spangled Banner | Oh, thus be it ever, when free men shall stand | Oh, thus shall it be, when free people shall stand |
It’s probably clear, but I would also want to change the hymn title “Men Are That They Might Have Joy” to “We Are That We Might Have Joy.” Also, I wanted to note that the lines I revised in “Battle Hymn of the Republic” are, I think, some of the coolest lines in any of our hymns. That’s why I tried to substitute words that maintain at least somewhat the marching framing of the music, rather than just doing something like converting men to all in the line “As he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free,” because all just sounds too limp in this context.
Word Swap
| Hymn | Actual line | Revised line |
|---|---|---|
| Sing Praise to Him | That men may hear the grateful song | That all may hear the grateful song |
| God of Our Fathers, Known of Old | God of our fathers, known of old, | God of our people, known of old, |
| Now Thank We All Our God | Who, from our mothers’ arms, | Who, from our parents’ arms, |
| My Redeemer Lives | The one bright hope of men on earth, | The one bright hope of all on earth, |
| Reverently and Meekly Now | With thy brethren be at peace. | With thy comrades be at peace. |
| Lord, I Would Follow Thee | I would be my brother’s keeper; | I would be my neighbor’s keeper; |
| Lord, I Would Follow Thee | Savior, may I love my brother | Savior, may I love my neighbor |
| Should You Feel Inclined To Censure | Trifle with a brother’s fame; | Trifle with a neighbor’s fame; |
| Know This, That Every Soul Is Free | To choose his life and what he’ll be; | To choose their life and what they’ll be; |
| Know This, That Every Soul Is Free | That God will force no man to heav’n. | That God will force no one to heav’n. |
| Brightly Beams Our Father’s Mercy | Some poor fainting, struggling seaman | Some poor fainting, struggling sailor |
| Brightly Beams Our Father’s Mercy | Trim your feeble lamp, my brother; | Trim your feeble lamp, my comrade; |
In spite of my suggested revision, I do think it’s unfortunate that if we dropped seamen from “Brightly Beams Our Father’s Mercy,” we’d be deprived of many crude jokes!
I’ve been assuming that the new hymnal will incorporate more inclusive language, so I guess I’m less convinced than you that there will be particular resistance to that among the FP and 12. It seems fairly common to me, that general conference talks edit the scriptures to be gender inclusive. For example, in the last conference, Jeffery Holland quoted Doctrine and Covenants 128:22 (Go forward and not backward. Courage, brethren; and on, on to the victory!”) as “Go forward [my beloved young friends]. Courage, … and on, on to the victory!” Brother Christofferson quoted Doctrine and Covenants 45:5 as “Wherefore, Father, spare these my brethren [and my sisters] that believe on my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life.” Brother Nelson does it too. In October 2020, he quoted Helaman 3:29 (“divide asunder all the cunning and the snares and the wiles of the devil, and lead the man of Christ in a strait and narrow course”) as “divide asunder all the cunning … and the wiles of the devil, and lead the [disciple] of Christ in a strait and narrow course.”
The last hymnal revision (I’m old enough to remember that) did have some inclusive changes, such as in “The Time is Far Spent.” Since we’ve done it to hymns in the past, and we do it to scriptures now, it doesn’t seem that much of a stretch to me.
I would be thrilled if you turned out to be right, Left Field! I haven’t looked at it systematically, but I think that while there are conference speakers who gender-neutralize scriptures when they read them, there are more of them who don’t. But I could be wrong.
Nice work! Some impressive rewrites.
I’ve actually never thought the the How Firm a Foundation “desert to his foes” line referred to one’s soul, but to Jesus’ foes. What about As Sisters in Zion?
Another change that would be so simple is to change that final problematic Hie to Kolob verse where it says “there is no end to race” to “there is no end to grace.”
Thanks, anita! On “How Firm a Foundation,” at least as I read it, I thought from verse 3 forward, it was supposed to be in God’s voice. Like verse 5, for example, refers to “my grace, all sufficient.” But I’m not entirely sure. Your reading could be right.
On “As Sisters in Zion,” I was just lucky that it wasn’t in the sample, since it’s number 309. I’m not sure what I would even do with it if I did try to revise it, short of just some brute force replacement of “sisters” with “siblings,” which grates even on my un-musically-trained ears.
And I totally agree with your change on “If You Could Hie to Kolob.”
For “How Firm a Foundation” there’s no need to make things plural. ‘Their’ can be singular.
In general, I’m in favor of making hymns more gender neutral, but I have a few exceptions. I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong about having gendered hymns that we sing in gendered settings. (“Ye Elders of Israel,” “As Sisters in Zion,” etc.) But since we don’t really sing in gendered settings anymore, that probably doesn’t matter.
I also have a strong aversion to changing the lyrics to “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “Ring Out Wild Bells” because of the context of their creation, deference to their authors and their history. I admit, this is an arbitrary distinction based on my personal feelings. But I don’t want to go back and edit Julia Ward Howe and mess with her words. (And if you want to push me on this, yes, I’d rather go back to her line: “as He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free” than make any further changes.) I suppose my general statement here would be that not all of the gendered language in the hymns is equally bad and not all the fixes are equally good. I’m willing to stake a middle ground where some are changed and others are not.
Perhaps the “seaman” jokes will all be replaced by “comrade” jokes? (I have a hard time imagining ‘comrade’ slipping past the editors red pen.)
These are excellent suggestions! I regularly edit the language in the hymns on the fly as I’m singing them and this will give me some great solutions- I love using “beloved” for example in stead of “our father’s”, for example.
However, my inner 7th grader hopes they never, no never, remove the “seaman” from Brightly Beams our Father’s Mercy.
DaveW, that’s a great point about not all gendered language being equally bad.
Thanks, Moss! And I’m glad I’m not the only one with a juvenile sense of humor!
You guys probably still sing “yoo-hoo!” unto Jesus.
It just now occurs to me that “The world has no use for the drone” could be called gendered language. But I’m sure that’s not why the line got axed.
Of course I don’t know if any general authorities consistently gender neutralize every scripture. Probably not. And there are probably some that never do it. But it does seem like something I’ve seen pretty regularly for a few decades. Since even the prophet does it in conference, I wouldn’t expect too much resistance to revising lyrics the same way.
Maybe now that the UK has a king, the title in the hymn book can be changed to “God Save the Queen,” since for the last 70 years they had a queen and the song was titled “God Save the King.”
Ha! That’s a great point, Dot!
As a little girl I remember being puzzled and scared by the line “There is no tomorrow but only today.” from “Today While the Sunshines” in the 1950’s hymnal. How was it not possible to wake up the next morning? Since I became an adult I have asked friends and people who are old enough to remember the old hymn book and that particular hymn what they thought that line meant to them when they were kids or even teens. To my surprise many of them said that the sentence hadn’t made any sense to them either and had scary connotations for them. Some said that their parents would tell them that they were too young to understand the meaning which basically is-don’t procrastinate doing the important and meaningful things in life today because life is unpredictable and we may never have an opportunity to do those things again. Or, as my maternal grandmother put it more bluntly (and terrifyingly) to little me-you just might die for no apparent reason during the night, or suddenly get sick and die or be in an accident that killed you, and then you’d feel badly because you hadn’t obeyed all of the commandments which then made God angry with you so that He had no choice but to severely punish you by sending you to Spirit Prison. Whew! It took a long time before I recovered from the trauma of thinking that Heavenly Father could make me die during the middle of the night or let me suddenly get sick and die all because I had forgotten to clean my part of the bedroom that I shared with my sister or didn’t pick up all of my Legos as my mom had asked me to or be nicer to the oldest of my three brothers who was a bit of a bully and who didn’t share toys nicely. Heavenly Father was just waiting for the moment that I died (or when He decided to make me die) to catch me send me to hell.
It wasn’t until I was bored during a sacrament meeting in my YA ward and I was flipping through the hymnal to find some interesting and/or inspirational lyrics to read that I saw once again this hymn and began to puzzle out why the person who’d penned the words to this hymn had used those ominous words “There is no tomorrow but only today.” It suddenly occurred to me that this hymn and its troubling phrase had been written back at a time in the 19th century when adults and children actually could go to bed and then suddenly get sick and die during the night. Ditto with waking up in the morning and feeling great before lunch only to have some deadly disease /illness that was going around your family and community kill you before bedtime. The hymn was referring to a fact of life back at the time that my grandparents and even my parents had to face when they were growing up. No wonder the last phrase of the chorus of the hymn hadn’t made sense to me! I had grown up in a time when proper sanitation had significantly improved the overall health of individuals and communities and where what had once been termed as “standard childhood diseases” during much of the 20th century had been eradicated thanks to vaccines and special medications had been invented to prevent premature death. My paternal grandparents had often told me stories about losing close friends, family members and relatives to disease, unsafe home environments and accidents and what it was like to see the empty desk next to theirs at school and/or being a part of funeral services in which the Primary kids sang “They Have Taken Our Dear Rosebud From Us” either at the church or at the graveside service.
When the 1985 hymnal came out I went immediately to that hymn to see if the words had been changed to fit with modern reality. It now reads “Prepare for tomorrow by working today.” which even a Primary kid can understand. Thank goodness!
I hope that this makes sense. My post Covid brain fog made expressing myself rather challenging tonight.?
That totally makes sense, Poor Wayfaring Stranger. Thanks for sharing your experience with that dark wording. I think Douglas Campbell’s article (linked near the beginning of the post) mentions that change. It sounds like a lot of people didn’t like that wording, and said so, and that’s how it came to be changed in the 1985 hymnal.
Battle Hymn of the Republic
As he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free,
As he died to make us holy, we should live to make us free,
Here are a few alternative
Hymn Current Text & Proposed Revision
Carry 0n On the rock our fathers planted
On the rock our forebears planted
Battle Hymn of the Republic As he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free,
As he died to make us holy, we should live to make us free,
Now Thank We All Our God With thy brethren be at peace.
With God’s children be at peace.
Thanks for your alternatives, Bryan!
As the famous Jesus Quote says “I never said it would be easy. I only said it would be worth it” (in before everyone lets me know that is not *actually a Jesus quote-yes I know that let me try to be funny early in the morning)
I have spent the last several years singing with Beyond The Walls, an online choir that sings hymns from Community of Christ. Several years ago they revamped their hymnal making the music inclusive. I can not tell you how much joy it gives me to be included in the prayers to God that I sing each week. Sometimes the phrases might be a bit awkward but is is just one example of a community that is trying to make sure everyone is safe and welcome. This reminder encourages us to look around and try to make the rest of the space as open and welcoming as possible.
Will the new LDS hymnal modify the language to be inclusive? I don’t know. Because a lot of the religious practices and beliefs are gendered making it more inclusive might accidentally shine a light on exactly what parts are very male-men and not everyone-men. As a woman I am very used to reading myself into the men/man/mankind/brethren language and assuming it also means me. But sometimes it really only means men.
I LOVE changing brother to neighbor in Lord I would Follow Thee!
May I suggest, in O God the Eternal Father saying “by us least understood” – it better preserves the context and is less tortuous.
Thank you for taking on this project! May it come to pass!
I’m publishing a series where I translated some hymns from Spanish to English over at Times and Seasons. When I was working on the translations, I tried to make the translations gender neutral. So, it’s fun to see someone else running into the same types of difficulty here.
I think the hardest ones to get a clear substitute on were brothers and sisters. Siblings was generally what I went with, even though that takes some getting used to. Colleagues, comrades, children [of God] etc. were a few alternatives I considered, but didn’t quite capture the meaning as well as I would like.
Another substitution I used that felt odd at first but that I got used to after thinking about it for a while was using “folks” instead of “men”.
That sounds wonderful, Niki-la! And I think you’re spot on that trying to change the hymnal would really highlight where hymns were saying “man” for men and where they were saying it for everyone. I think that problem goes double (or a hundred times) for the scriptures.
amphvivian, thanks for your alternative!
Chad, that’s great! What a cool project you’re doing! I also like “folks,” although I admit that it felt too casual to me when I was trying to gender-neutralize these hymns. Maybe I just need time to get used to it like you did.