What in the hell is going on with the Church of Sweden?
Religious officials have urged its clergy to use more gender-neutral language when referring to God and to avoid referring to the deity as “Lord” or “he”.
The move is one of many made by the national Evangelical Lutheran Church, which is in the process of updating a 31-year-old handbook, which outlines how services should be conducted in terms of language, hymns and other aspects.
The new guidelines will be introduced on 20 May on the Christian holiday of Pentecost.
A former state church, headquartered in the city of Uppsala, some 37 miles north of the capital, the church has 6.1 million baptised members in a country of 10 million.
It is headed by a woman, Archbishop Antje Jackelen, who was ordained a priest in the Church of Sweden in 1980 and became a Doctor of Theology at Lund University in 1999.
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