When is dancing wrong?

Growing up, I was also taught that dancing was wrong, so I was even not allowed to participate in the folk dance at school, something I think to this day was silly.

Having said that, I was never told that dancing would send me to Hell. The Fundamentalist circle I grew up in taught that it was a path to temptation. Call me naive, but how it can be possible for two who are unmarried to "hold each other tight," "dance to the music," and not be tempted to lust, I'll never know. I've been married 27 years, so you'd think I'd be over it, but holding my wife tight?? Whew!! And to do that with someone you are not married to???

Tell you what, you folk who think that kind of dancing is all right, next time you are out on the dance floor say to the girl, "Why don't we just have a word of prayer while we hold each other?" Hah!

 

You were allowed to cut your hair short?? Sinner!! You didn't have John R. Rice for your preacher, right? :tongue3:

We are on the same page, Bitsy.

But the passage about Miriam, and Psalm 150, bring up an issue. Is "liturgical dancing" still popular in the States? Years ago a pastor I know rebuked his daughter because her "liturgical dance" in his church turned sensuous. As far as I know, they still don't speak to each other.

While dancing to the Lord like Miriam did has a certain charm, I don't see dancing as a proper church activity. In the OT, it was a physical activity offered to the Lord in much the same way the Bon dance here in Japan is offered to the dead. I believe the physical activities God is pleased with in the NT era are bowing down in prayer, singing praise, witnessing for Him and the like.

On the other hand, it is possible to just get so happy in the Lord we jump for joy, and I think that is a kind of dancing. In college I once won a first place trophy in a martial arts tournament, jumped up and down for joy and grabbed the guy next to me (second place, poor guy) and gave him a big hug. If looks could kill....:tongue3:

 

Lookout, sister! :laugh:

 

Aha! I wondered who it was. You are forgiven, Marcia.

But seriously, three have voted that no dancing is inappropriate. I'm really puzzled how a Bible believing Baptist could believe that #2 & 7 on the poll in particular are excusable.

 

:laugh: :laugh: But would the Calvinist lie still for you??

So, let me get this straight. Do you then say that dancing is never a sin? Do you think it was perfectly all right for the Israelites to strip and dance around the golden calf? Moses didn't think so. He got angry when he saw "the calf, and the dancing" (Ex. 32:19), and threw down the tablets, breaking all ten commandments at once. He then commanded the righteous in the camp to get their swords and execute 3000 of the sinners. God didn't think so. He sent a plague because of the idol they were offering the dance to.

I just got back from dendo (evangelism) with my good friend Brother H. Now he likes the Japanese festivals, so I have to keep an eye on him. If you were Bro. H.'s pastor, would you tell him it was all right to participate in the Bon dances, offered to the spirits of the dead?

 

So would it be all right for me to join in a Bon dance here in Japan as long as in my heart I was offering it to God while everyone else was offering it to their ancestors?

I know where you are coming from, and it is true that sin comes from the heart as Jesus taught, but I must say that the action matters greatly, otherwise the actual act of killing someone would not matter so much as long as we didn't mean to do it. Again, there are actually quite a few Bible passages that call actions "sin."

 

I'm afraid this would mean very little to the Japanese, being entirely out of context in their heathen culture and religion. They would still think I was offering the dance to the ancestors with them.

Murder is determined by authority. An executioner or soldier is given the authority to kill by his government, which is given authority to God. However, no one gives me authority to kill my neighbor, either by accident or on purpose (with the sole possible exception of self defense). Either way the Japanese powers that be would come down hard on me, and rightly so. Murder is a terrible sin in the Japanese culture, as in virtually every culture in the world.

As for the "pull the plug" discussion, that is a whole different ball game, and I see no reason to bring it into this discussion.

 

The problem, Benjamin, is that modern American society condemns all violence as sin (or in the modern word, "inappropriate"), and that is just not so. Much of human violence is righteous: the government punishing crime, me defending my family, etc. All the violence done by God in the Bible is righteous. In fact, Jesus Himself was violent when He threw the money changers out of the temple.

On the other hand, lust (assuming it as desire towards the wrong object of affection, rather than desire towards one's mate) is always wrong, as Jesus taught in Matt. 5:28, "But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart."

As it happens, I hold black belts in several martial arts, so I know quite a few kata, and I see a huge difference between a kata teaching violence and a dance opening the door to temptation to lust. The kata is not advocating violence, just preparing for it. In fact, all traditional kata that I know (both Japanese and Chinese) starts with a block, meaning it is aimed towards self defense and not initiating violence. This echos the famous statement by Gichin Funakoshi, the father of Karate in Japan, who said, "There is no first strike in Karate."

On the other hand, dancing with a partner of the opposite sex who is not your mate is aiming one straight towards adultery.

 

I had to go to supper, but I wanted to answer this part, too. It is a misconception that a martial arts skill can lead to serious violent acts, unless by this you mean that having a martial art skill enables one to violently protect himself, his family or the weak.

In my experience (going back 40 years to high school wrestling, then judo, karate and kung fu in college), I've never personally known anyone made more violent by the discipline of the martial arts, though I have heard of the rare exception. On the contrary, in almost every case the discipline prevents one from further violence, because the martial artist then has self confidence and has no need to prove anything, unlike the street brawler who wishes to show how macho he is.