“God Rest Ye Merry Queers”: Christmas Carol Rewritten to be More “Inclusive”

A Christmas carol rewritten to be more “inclusive” to women and “queer” people has prompted a row within the Church of England, after critics said the move was an attempt to “push political ideology”. The Telegraph has the story.

The traditional 17th century carol God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen features lyrics about Jesus’s birth and the joy of the shepherds and Mary. 

However, at a carol service on Monday, an alternate version of the lyrics was printed in the order of service to feature “new inclusive words for a traditional hymn”.

All Saints with Holy Trinity in Loughborough used the carol with updated lyrics that removed reference to Christ as saviour and to Satan, instead referring to “queer and questioning” and “women, who by men have been erased”. 

A parishioner and Church of England ordinand tweeted a picture of the order of service for the Mayor’s Community Carol Service with the updated lyrics.

Some of the new lyrics read: “God rest you also, women, who by men have been erased, Through history ignored and scorned, defiled and displaced; Remember that your stories too, are held within God’s grace.

“God rest you, queer and questioning, your anxious hearts be still, Believe that you are deeply known and part of God’s good will For all to live as one in peace; the global dream fulfilled.”

Worth reading in full.

Having read this story, a reader was reminded of the Covid version of the carol from the last two years, and sent us the local version they were singing last Christmas. Here it is.

Don’t test me, Covid mental-men 2021

Don’t test me, Covid mental-men
My patience starts to fray
No virus phobic jailer’s
going to halt our Christmas Day
We’ll heed no words from SAGE’s fools
whose graphs all run astray
O’ Ferguson the end isn’t nigh
End isn’t nigh
O’ Ferguson the end isn’t nigh

From China and then Italy
A grim delusion came;
That only brutal actions
kept this virus on a chain,
But countries locked down or opened up,
had numbers much the same
’cause rules can’t tell a virus not to multiply
It’ll still multiply
Rules can’t tell a virus not to multiply

The media fearmongered and,
the diktats they enshrined,
Reporting only Covid deaths,
to others being blind,
Denouncing protesters who’d,
by some high-vis thug, been fined.
And yet in Downing Street their diktats don’t apply,
Do not apply
Yet in Downing Street their diktats don’t apply

Vax passports lead to lockdowns
and to privacy corroding
Europe brought them in, they did not stop
the case counts from exploding,
Copying them over a mild strain
what has BoJo been smoking?
Now they’ll keeping locking down unless you defy
Unless you defy
They’ll keeping locking you down unless you defy

If you’ve put your trust in vaccines
then it should concern you naught
whether folks around you have a cough
or throat that’s somewhat sore
If you don’t get back normality
what has it all been for?
Now let “freedom” be your rallying cry
Rallying cry
Now let “freedom” be your rallying cry

Restrictions haven’t worked
that, as a lesson, should be clear
The virus is immune, who’d guess?,
to adverts spreading fear
Each rule, begets more rules
so let’s get normal back, this year
We can end this if we simply don’t comply
Do not comply
We can end this if we simply don’t comply