Dancing

So why am I doing a foolish thing? Arden Walde's letter in the March 22 issue was a plea for us to discuss the issue. I suspect he speaks for a good number of parents struggling to raise teens in a confusing world. What good do we do if we give good advice but avoid the very issues with which people are struggling? This, then, is my contribution to an ongoing debate, presented with much fear and trembling.

There are people in the conference who think all dancing is sinful. There are also people who think no dancing is sinful. I suspect the majority take a position somewhere between these extremes.

I can find no Scripture that will say all dancing, all moving in time to music, is sinful. However, I think that some kinds of dancing are sinful--and that more kinds of dancing are dangerous.

Let us begin with social dancing. The old joke says that Mennonites object to sex because it could lead to dancing. The reality is that dancing can be sinful because it could lead to immoral sex. The emphasis here is on immoral sex. Dancing should be permissible for a husband and wife, for instance, because sex between them would not be sinful. However, the reality is that most social dancing occurs between unmarried teenagers and unmarried young adults.

Dancing can lead to sexual sin in three ways. First, some dancing is sexually provocative, meant to be watched. Most likely, the dancing of Herodias's daughter before King Herod fit this category.

Second, some dancing leads couples to hold and touch each other in ways that would not be considered appropriate in any other context. This can lead to sexual arousal and sexual sin. (This gets confusing because in some modern dancing, "couples" hardly touch at all.) The danger is increased when dancers' senses are overwhelmed by extremely loud music and they are encouraged to be "free", to let go and allow their emotions and bodies to be carried along by the music.

The third sexual danger is social. Dances may encourage young people to pair off before they are ready for it and even if they have only casual relationships which are open to little commitment. Young people can go bowling, to youth group meetings and to parties with friends, but dances put pressure on young people to come in pairs. It is dangerous to force young people into pairs on the basis of casual commitment. The criteria for such casual and superfical relationships is often sexual attraction, not mutual love and respect.

Some young people say that they are free in Christ and that they can handle dancing without any danger of sexual sin. That sounds spiritually arrogant to me. The reason an earlier generation established firm rules against such things as dancing is that they recognized the reality of human sinfulness. It is wisdom rather than foolishness to admit our tendency to sin and to avoid putting ourselves in situations which lead us into temptation.

Social dancing too often leads young people to evaluate each other on the basis of looks and dancing ability, and that evaluation can be cruel. Thus, we have the common phenomenon of girls lined up along one wall and boys along the other, looking each other over. Some people experience social dancing as a fun way to enjoy music and get physical exercise. Others' experience of dancing revolves around confusion, uncertainty and social rejection.

What about worship dancing? I agree that there is Old Testament warrant for some worship dancing. We are to worship God with our whole being. Worship dancing may be a logical extension of the hand-clapping and hand-raising that is now common in many of our churches. However, that doesn't mean that there is biblical warrant for everything that passes as worship dancing. Some worship dancing is simply an excuse to have fun--not sinful, but not necessarily worship either. Some so-called worship dancing can also be sexually provocative--and worship dancers who deny this possibility and don't guard against it are also spiritually arrogant. This was Michal's objection to David's dancing before the Lord--and while David was probably more spiritual than Michal, I don't think we can automatically assume David's viewpoint in their conversation was the correct one. After all, David later fell into sexual sin with Bathsheba after seeing her scantily attired--and his words to Michal may imply that he will seek the favours of the slave girls rather than his wife. (I suspect it was David rather than the judgement of God that decided Michal would be childless.)

So, I am not ready to vote for a conference resolution condemning all dancing. (As far as I know, the MB Conference has never passed such a resolution.) After all, some dancing can be simply innocent fun. This is particularly true of such forms as line dancing and square dancing. Moreover, now that there is a considerable body of good contemporary Christian music, dancing need no longer be accompanied by the sinful lyrics of secular rock music.

On the other hand, I don't think conference agencies should run social dances. In the first place, it creates confusion among young people, implying conference approval for all forms of dancing. In the second place (and this applies to passing resolutions against dancing as well as to holding dances), conference has to be run by consensus. We should not be forcing people to support something on which there is considerable disagreement. We should be considerate of one another. We should be careful of violating the consciences of our brothers and sisters for whom Christ died (I Corinthians 8:11).

Mr. Walde also asked us to speak out of our experience. I was raised a Baptist (and Baptists are sometimes even more rigid on moral issues than Memmonites, if you can imagine that). The local Baptist church taught that dancing was sinful. My parents were less rigid. They didn't encourage it, but they let my brother, my sister and me go to school dances. We did a few times, got bored and quit.

That I think may be a way to approach these things. I don't think we should forbid things as absolutely sinful unless there is biblical warrant for it. However, I think we have every right to label some things as dangerous.

My wife and I have followed this approach with our 13-year-old daughter. We thought that totally forbidding dancing might make dancing too attractive, and we wanted to make clear to her that our standard is the Bible, not "traditional morality" (we all know what Jesus thought about some traditions). We do not allow her to date yet--and we have so far forbidden her to attend most dances at her school (partly because the police have warned that it is dangerous in our community for young girls to be out at night). However, we did let her attend one noon-hour dance at school. She went, watched the two lines of boys and girls uncomfortably facing each other for 20 minutes and concluded it was boring. She went to the library and studied.

Dancing can lead to sin, but dancing is not the crucial issue of our time. Our relationship to Jesus is. If we get that in order, everything else will fall into place. If our young people are grounded in the Word and filled with the Spirit, then we will be able to trust them to discern how they should live. Those whose lives revolve around social activity, rock music, dancing and "being cool" are in grave danger. Those whose lives revolve around Jesus may find that whether they dance occasionally or not probably does not matter a whole lot. As Paul says in reference to our freedom in Christ, " 'Everything is permissible'--but not everything is beneficial" (I Corinthians 10:23). Those who are busy about the Father's business may find some time for fun, but they will have little time for trouble.

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