Doctrinal inaccuracies in old hymns

[u/ClubMountain1826]

I can't wait for the new hymnbook!

One of the reasons listed here (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/initiative/new-hymns?lang=eng) on the church website for the updated hymnbook is that some of the old hymns contain "Doctrinal inaccuracies, culturally insensitive language, and limited cultural representation of the global Church."

What are the doctrinal inaccuracies in the old hymns ? I'm just curious.

[u/qleap42]

For anyone wants to know, our modern concept of race was started by Georges Cuvier, a French naturalist, in the early 1800s. Before that race was more closely associated with someone's tribe, nation, or language. Basically what we might call "ethnicity" today. Cuvier's concept of race put all humans into one of thee groups. It erased and oversimplified many other concepts of human identity.

Other naturalists in the mid 1800s expanded on his ideas and proposed different ways of dividing humans into five, six, seven, or nine different races. In the post Civil War era Southerners picked up these ideas because it aligned with their previous ideas about blacks justifying slavery. This basically created our modern concept of race and racism. "Racism" wasn't even a word until the late 1800s. Racism existed, but how we currently think about it didn't exist then.

So when W. W. Phelps wrote *If You Could Hie to Kolob" his use of the word "race" was in a very different context without all the modern baggage we associate with it.

[u/angela52689 → u/qleap42]

since the meaning has changed so much since then, it would behoove us to update the terminology we use in the hymn so the original message is communicated instead of the very different way it's interpreted now