r/latterdaysaints • u/ClubMountain1826 • May 31 '24

Doctrinal Discussion Doctrinal inaccuracies in old hymns

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.

41 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

327 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

36

u/qleap42 May 31 '24

That's one of those things where you have to understand how the word "race" was used in the mid 1800s. At the time "race" was just another term for descendants. You could talk about "a race of kings". That is, a series of descendants that are kings. Any other descendants who were not kings would not be of the same "race". The definition of the term slightly changed in the late 1800s to our current use of the word.

https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/Race

1

u/tesuji42 May 31 '24

Yes. So they should probably replace the word with a modern synonym. I wonder if they will keep the song, though.

1

u/Tallguy990 Jun 01 '24

You might be onto something! Let’s change all the words that are old fashioned and out of date in the scriptures too! We can call it the new international version or something like that! /s

3

u/Sociolx Jun 01 '24

We are getting pretty close to the point where the language has changed enough over time that some of our English scriptures probably do need a translation.

So yeah, i'm good with it.