According to The Washington Post, policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told not to use seven words while writing documents connected to next year’s budget. The forbidden words are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”
In response, Reverend Susan Russell composed a version of the Magnificat that was adapted by Rev. Victoria Long and read in church last Sunday:
God has cast down the mighty from their thrones of entitlement
and lifted up the vulnerable.
God has filled the hungry with good things —
like an evidence/science-based strategy to end global warming —
and the rich will be sent away empty.
God has come to help for God remembers God’s promise of diversity,
the promise made to our transgender siblings,
To Sarah and her fetus and Mary’s too.
This adapted version, along with other prayers and meditations can be found in an article The CDC Christmas Sermon: Banned Words Will Preach! by Susan Thistlethwaite, a Professor of Theology and President Emerita of Chicago Theological Seminary, in the Huffington Post.
Lakewood United Church of Christ 