Hee Hee

Apparently, the Evangelical Lutherans drank the Kool-Aid too.

Millions of Lutherans will be able to sing a new song -- actually some 300 new songs -- to the Lord in an updated worship book that offers more options for contemporary worship and less emphasis on exclusively masculine images of God.

The Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America gave the proposed new prayer book and hymnal a thumbs up by a 740-250 vote Wednesday at its biennial meeting. The action allows church officials to make final revisions to the new volume scheduled for publication in October 2006.

Not everyone was happy. Some delegates said the church had been too distracted with sexuality issues to give full attention to the worship book. Others protested a "totalitarian" process in eliminating male imagery for God from worship.

The changes in the language about God "will be like a poke in the eye with a sharp stick" to many in the church, said Larry Kallem of Iowa.

Before the final vote, proposals to keep the current Lutheran book of worship, which was published in 1978, and to delay any action until 2009 were overwhelmingly turned down.

Then, after two hours of debate, delegates gave sustained applause for the approval of work on the new book that attempts to be open to different cultures and new musical styles. It will offer alternatives such as "Holy Eternal Majesty, Holy Incarnate Word, Holy Abiding Spirit" for the male-dominated Trinitarian image of "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" in prayers during Sunday services.