I was reading something in a guitar forum where someone was talking abount playing in the “praise band” and mentioned interpretive dancing going on while they were playing.
I’m a nominal Christian at best, I was raised a Lutheran and I’m nearly 57 so this seems highly outlandish to me. I don’t attend any church but all I hear about these places make me think they’re little more social and entertainment venues.
I’m reminded of the Fosterites depicted in ‘Stranger in a Strange’ land somewhat. It seems that there’s a lot of show business as well as plain old commerce going on in these new style churches.
Um, huh? The benefit is for the worshipers, not society at large. People do all kinds of wacky things in the name of worship, and you’re picking on dancers? What about the snake handlers ? Or the rat temple? What about all the rock & roll churches?
Creating works of art- from building beautiful places of worship to writing worship songs- is a traditional part of all religions, including Christianity. The basic idea is that creating beautiful things will draw attention to the glory of god(s). They provide a small taste of heaven, a way of trying to express the inexpressible, and a thing that makes the world a better place by bringing beauty into the world. Almost all art until the last century or so was inspired by religion…
So no, I don’t see anything “new” about it. What do you think church should be about?
Contemplation of eternal suffering in the deepest hottest pits of hell!
I know, the concepts of show business in Religion aren’t that new. Rome figured that out a long time ago. I don’t know though, when read it my first thought was that it’s just silly.
I’m no theologian but I think there is a difference between dancing to rock music as part of a church service and a Bach cantata. Maybe it’s only a difference in quality though.
I agree with that assessment. Dancing tends to focus one’s attention on the performer rather than the object of worship.
Unfortunately, a lot of churches feel that they need to resort to all sorts of gimmickry in order to attract people. Some applaud this approach to “church growth,” but I think that it ultimately does more damage than good.
What makes you think that he doesn’t object to those things? It seems to me that one doesn’t have to list every single wacky thing that’s out there before voicing one’s opinion on a specific topic. Besides, stuff like interpretive dancing is a lot more common than snake handling in churches, so I can see why this would happen to strike home?
The Solid Rock Church certainly looks like a business glancing at the web site. Pay your tithes online! The pastors look like they should be models for Sears.
Most Christian churches include singing as a part of worship service. Dancing is just the other side of the coin, and seems odd to mainstream Christians simply for historical reasons. For most human societies, singing and dancing are integral art forms. It is quite likely that those behaviors evolved together at (or even before) the time our species came onto the scene.
The primitives didn’t sacrifice victims-- at least not often. It takes sophisticated civilizations to pull that off. And remember that Christianity’s most basic tenet is the sacrifice of a victim. They even eat his flesh and drink his blood at their worship services. Now, that’s civilized!
Psalm 150 explicitly endorses dance as a technique for worship, as well as drumming and clanging noises. Seems like the rockin’ religionists are on solid ground Biblically.
I disagree. Psalm 150 does indeed talk about dance; however, there’s a difference between spontaneous dances of joy and having a small team perform an orchestrated dance routine as a means of “leading” people in worship.
That’s the critical distinction. Most churches, if pressed, would probably agree that dance can be utterly appropriate in worship. When churches object, it’s typically to the use of dance as a choreographed performance that’s done on stage, ostensibly for the sake of “leading” worship.
That’s why I don’t think that the mention of dance in Psalm 150 provides “solid ground” for the use of interpretive dance performances. That would be like saying that the command to sing automatically justifies any and all forms of vocal performance. It simply does not follow.
This article provides further discussion on that particular issue. While it does not specifically discuss Psalm 150, it does talk about why the author does not consider all forms of dance to be appropriate.
Burton, I’m Jewish and was not aware that, apparently, some Christians do not regard the Psalms as being part of their Scripture. Please forgive my ignorance.
JThunder, I must confess that I have a hard time relating to any article that expresses concern about “new age creeping in” (oh, the horror!). Overall, the article seems to be expressing a fear of sensuality and the human body which seems to me to be incompatible with the idea of rejoicing in God’s creation. “Dancing is a dangerous thing?” The author appears to have a dualist perspective where the body and sensuality are “bad”, and the spirit is “good”. I would propose, rather, that body and spirit are both aspects of God, and both can be appropriately employed in praise. So, I think I understand the point he is making, but I very much disagree with it and see it as rooted in the same misguided, fundamentalist thinking that leads to such sins as sexism and homophobia.
I guess that, unless you buy into the body-phobic dualistic perspective, I don’t see why leading interpretive dances is any different than leading songs or responsive readings, both of which (AFAIK) are generally considered noncontroversial techniques of worship.
In my personal experience, I don’t tend to get much out of dancing as part of organized worship, but I am a pretty uptight, left-brained guy, and I know many people who find it meaningful. When praying in private, I may occasionally feel moved to get up and thrash about a la King David in the cited article, but again, I would be too uptight to do that in a public setting.
[QUOTE=Thing FishJThunder, I must confess that I have a hard time relating to any article that expresses concern about “new age creeping in” (oh, the horror!). Overall, the article seems to be expressing a fear of sensuality and the human body which seems to me to be incompatible with the idea of rejoicing in God’s creation. “Dancing is a dangerous thing?” [/QUOTE]
I think you’re reading too much into that statement. That’s the problem with taking statements out of context.
The author was saying that using dance to lead worship is dangerous insofar as it directs focus toward the dancer rather than to the Lord. In fact, the author specifically said that David danced before the Lord, so obviously, he wasn’t making a blanket condemnation of all dancing!
I don’t think that’s a fair assessment at all. At no point did the author say that anything involving the body is automatically bad, or that anything involving the spirit is automatically good. Again, note that he applauded the way David danced before the Lord. He would not say such a thing if he thought that dance was inherently wrong, or that anything corporeal was automatically evil!
As for sensuality, nowhere does he say that dancing is inherently sensual. Quite the contrary, he specifically said, “[A]ny dancing in worship that accentuates the body, that is done in lewd, sensual movements, etc., is certainly not Spirit-inspired or acceptable.” The phrasing of this comment suggests that he does NOT consider all dancing to be lewd or sensual!
Moreover, even if you disregard everything he said, the point remains… Psalm 150 merely promotes the use of dance. It does not say that all manner of dance is acceptable, and it certainly does not provide any “solid ground” for the use of choreographed routines to lead people in worship.
