An Essay on Dancing

Well, here it is ladies and gentlemen - my views on dancing. They're generally not popular, nor well accepted. Regardless, while most of my friends here at school dance the night away at the Snowball, I put fingers to keys in an attempt to explain why I am not joining them, especially as we call ourselves followers of Christ. Disclaimer – this story is written from the male point of view. If any women would like to contribute their thoughts, please feel free to do so.

This story goes back a bit in my life - to the last time I was at a dance. Up to this point, I had only grudgingly participated in such events. Usually I attended because it was a big, fun event in which everyone else I knew was participating, so I came along. It was never a big deal…just something I tried to enjoy and move on to the next event.

However, at this last dance I realized that something far less innocent was going on. Before I continue, allow me to paint a picture. As we go through life, we allow certain people to get physically close to us based on how comfortable we are around them. Psychologists call the area within 1 ½ feet of us the “intimate zone,” and it is this area on which I will be concentrating. This area is something reserved only for the closest of friends or (hopefully) family members. We do not put our random acquaintance from work or class inside this area, because we are not intimate with them.

Hopefully I am not saying anything new or earthshaking here. If I were to sum up the above paragraph, I would say that putting people (especially people of the opposite sex) within our intimate zone is not appropriate. Why are elevators such uncomfortable places? Because we are unnaturally close to people with whom we should probably not be so close. And so my question is “when we change the circumstances, why does calling such proximity ‘dancing’ suddenly make it right?” The answer that I will attempt to defend is that “it does not.”

As we have already established, having people very close to us has intimate - and let’s face it, sexual – connotations. Therein lies the problem – as followers of Christ it is not our job to engage in activity that causes other people to either doubt our sincerity, or worse, to stumble in their walk with the Lord. What is at stake is probably not a girl tempting a guy to physically do something dumb, but instead the battle is for his mind.

Notice that this verse is aimed toward the guys. I understand why, and I believe this verse directly applies to our discussion of dancing. Because, let’s face it, guys have enough trouble dealing with temptation as it is. But now, swaying in time with a girl who he probably likes more than he will admit, dressed very attractively, and with less than a foot of separation between their bodies, what do we honestly expect to be going on inside his mind?

So we have a temptation filled situation. I don’t fault the guy for struggling with natural feelings, or the girl for being the object of those temptations. Instead, I fault the situation.

This verse is a prayer to God that He not allow us to be put in a situation to be tempted. To make this a reality, I propose that God asks us to flee temptation so that we do not find ourselves surrounded by a state of affairs that is not healthy for our spiritual lives. I believe that social dancing is, in almost every case, just such a situation.

“Now wait a minute. There’s dancing in the Bible!” you say. That is true, but much of the dancing in the Word occurs in the context of worship, not socialization.

In this passage, David was accompanying the ark of God as it returned to Jerusalem. During this spiritually powerful time, David’s response to God was dancing “with all his might.” Note the difference between this example and the social dancing we have been discussing: dancing in worship comes out of an outpouring of love for our Creator; social dancing, well…does not.

I do not mean for this to be an exercise in legalism. At the center of the issue is purity of heart. When we step back for a minute and honestly examine our hearts and motivations for wanting to dance with people of the opposite sex, what do we find? I often hear that it is “just a bunch of people having a good time.” That may be true, but does that make it right? We worship a God who prizes a heart that is pure and positioned in a way that brings glory to Him, and it is up to us to accomplish that through the way we live our lives. So the next time a social dancing opportunity arises, I encourage you to take a minute and examine your heart. You may be surprised with what you find.