Its not just racist slurs or slanderous speech we're referring to. It also applies to many cherished expressions and parts of our spiritual formation. They were the hymns of our spirituality and of our childhood. The problem is that they are no more appropriate for us today than are the racist chants of the Ku Klux Klan, or the homophobic rhetoric of the Moral Majority. They are unacceptable because exclusive language is sinful.
Sexism is as evil as the bigotry of racism, classism, or ageism.
They are unacceptable because those songs exclude at least half of the population of the world. Sexist language in songs or prayers, or any part of worship, is unacceptable because it says something about God which is not true and which is unbiblical. The Bible is filled with feminine images of God which have been almost entirely ignored. To speak of our experience of God as only male is to miss the God of the Hebrews and of Jesus. Exclusive language is also unacceptable because it says something about us as persons which is not true.