Like Howard Jones there, I have never come across the expression "the holy people" - as opposed to "the chosen people" as a term for the Jewish people. Except of course in the context of this very strained, tortuous and daft "controversy" about Sydney Carter's song.

And that article and discussion "A Quaker acknowledgment of anti-Semitism subtext to Lord of the Dance" doesn't make it any less strained tortuous and daft - Quakers are just as capable of the occasional outbreaks of daftness as anyone else, they just tend to be rather better mannered in arguing out such matters than the rest of us.
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As for the song being "trite", I think that falls into the same trap as the complaint that Shakespeare and the Bible is full of quotations and hackneyed phrases.