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In the 1990's, the United Church of Christ adopted the New Century Hymnal (Cleveland, Ohio: Pilgrim, 1995)--the notorious Black Hymnal, so called because of its solid black cover. All of the hymns that it contains are "politically correct"--for example, references to fathers, Jesus as a king, ore even God as the Lord are excluded or replaced. Even the old favorite hymns have been completely rewritten.

When the Black Hymnals were issued, so many of the parishioners at the Hillcrest Congregational Church in La Habra Heights, Calif.--a deeply "red" section of Los Angeles County--protested that the pastor kept the old hymnals in the pews along with the new ones.

I haven't been to a service there in years, so I don't know if the old hymnals are still in use.

In the 1990's, the United Church of Christ adopted the New Century Hymnal (Cleveland, Ohio: Pilgrim, 1995)--the notorious Black Hymnal, so called because of its solid black cover. All of the hymns that it contains are "politically correct"--for example, references to fathers, Jesus as a king, ore even God as the Lord are excluded or replaced. Even the old favorite hymns have been completely rewritten.

I encountered something like that back in the 70's when I dropped into a church while visiting colleagues in Richmond Hill, Ontario. I accompanied them to their worship services out of courtesy. It was very PC in an era when that term had not yet entered the lexicon on a widespread basis.

But rather than being gender neutral, although all references to Christ were masculine, the Holy Spirit was consistently "she" and "her". As for Almighty God, HE was pretty much left out of their picture since it was awkward (even for them) to refer to HIM as "it".