London, Dec 26 (ANI): The modern version of Joy to the World has been named as the worst politically correct Christmas carol by churchgoers.

It is believed that many churches are making changes to the original Christmas carols and even removing words like king, son and virgin, to make them politically correct.

And the contemporary version of Joy to the World has topped the poll conducted by Ship of Fools, the religious humour website.

The lines “Joy to the world, the Lord is come, Let earth receive her King” has been replaced with “Joy to the world, for peace shall come, Let this be our refrain.”

Other changes made to the popular Christmas carols include O Come All Ye Faithful, with some people asked to sing “O come in adoration” instead of “O come let us adore him”, which is apparently considered too gender specific.

Hark the Herald Angels Sing has also been modified, with the line “Glory to the Christ child, bring” deemed more inclusive than “Glory to the newborn king”.

Many people complaint their local churches had made clumsy alterations to songbooks to suit todays politically correct age.

“We”ve all noticed the “new” words, grimaced, tried to remember what the original lines were, shaken our heads in bemusement, and politely carried on singing,” the Telegraph quoted website’’s Steve Goddard as saying.

“Theologically-modified carols will ring out everywhere this year. Innocents like king, man, son, virgin and Lord have been slaughtered to make carols more modern and inclusive. In some cases, entire verses have been rewritten,” he added.

The Rev Richard Mulcahy, from the Church in Wales, in Newport, South Wales, said that churchgoers were right to stick to conventional lyrics of the Christmas carols

“The tongue-twisting and general drop in volume from using the new words is just not worth it,” he said.

“So even if we use modernised words for hymns at other times of the year, when it comes to carols we have to throw out the changes,” he added. (ANI)