The one place where degenderizing the language completely fails is in the hymn "Veni Emanuel" -- the one part that so admirably says:

Born as man with man to dwell
Jesus, our Emanuel

There is no way to gender-bowdlerize this that doesn't just totally bung-up the poetry.

Sometimes it's better to leave well enough alone. I always fear that if we totally sanitize everything that comes to us from the past, we stand to lose the realization that things are better now (where they are, anyway).

Alex