There is a song by Isaac Watts titled Alas! and did my Saviour bleed in which the first verse goes like this:
Alas! and did my Saviour bleed, and did my Sovereign die? Would he devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?
In many songbooks today the "worm" in that verse is replaced by some other term, such as "sinner" or even, "one" so that the verse goes like this:
Alas! and did my Savious bleed, and did my Sovereign die? Would he devote that sacred head for such a one as I?
In fact, I wasn't certain that the first quote above was actually what Isaac Watts wrote so I looked it up at Christian Classics Ethereal Library and also at Project Gutenberg and the original verse is as I wrote it above saying, "Would he devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?"
The reasons for modifying the song in this way are not the subject of some conspiracy theory. The theology behind the change is outlined in the Wikipedia page on "Worm Theology." I said that the theology behind the change is outlined in the page on Worm Theology because although the page purports to be about the theology in the Isaac Watts hymn, it really has very little to do with the hymn and very much to do with the theology in a culture of self-promotion like we live in now. Removing the "worm" from the song is supposed to be because we are worth so much to God that he gave his son for us and therefore we can pat ourselves on the back. The first part of the statement is true. God loved us so much that he gave his son for us, but the back patting is where we go wrong. When Christ bled and died and devoted "that sacred head" we were worms. We've got to get it through our thick heads that without the blood of Christ we are not acceptable to God. Furthermore, removing the "worm" from our songs does not help the sinners of this world appreciate their sinful state. Not that they would hear the "worm" in the song itself, but the entire idea of removing the "worm" is rampant in the way that we think so that in our preaching we are so often now trying to convince people they are okay at the same time as we are asking them to come to Jesus! What nonsense! Why do they need to come to Jesus in the first place? You see those people carrying John 3:16 signs and many people who do such a thing have whittled down the Bible to just that verse, but now we've gone even farther and whittled down the Bible to half of that verse. We've managed to get that verse down to "For God so loved the world." And that is it! We at least ought to finish the verse:
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."
And why can't we have eternal life without God giving his Son? Why were we going to "perish" if God didn't help us? Because of our sin, that's why!
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. (Romans 5:10)
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved
(Ephesians 2:4-5)
This is so simple, in fact it is the very gospel itself:
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you--unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures
(1 Corinthians 15:1-4)
The basics of our sin problem and the remedy for it which is the very gospel itself are undermined by our "I'm okay, you're okay" philosophy. We do the lost and ourselves no favors by removing the "worm."
