Introduction
If we mean to caution a fellow believer that a modern activity is unbiblical, we owe him more than an appeal to custom, or to our own discomfort with it. The testimony of the church across the centuries, fathered in the appendix to this paper, is old, deep, and unbroken. A consensus of that kind among the godly sends up an important cautionary flag. It is a historical witness. Scripture alone can bind the conscience. This paper asks a narrower question than weather dancing is wrong, right, or of things indifferent. It asks at its root, what does the Word of God say about it. Then it asks, do we have a duty as Christians to take into account the weaker brother when exercising Christian liberty? These are two fair questions to ask as we begin to see the encroachment of the dance upon the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I write as one who holds that it ought not be looked upon favorably. But I also write wanting the reasoning to be logical enough survive scrutiny, and warm enough that someone who disagrees, will recognize a pastor speaking to them not at them.
I. What Scripture Actually Says
The Old Testament’s description of dance consistently speaks of leaping and whirling bound up with exuberant, religious joy. Solomon speaks of “a time to dance” (Eccl. 3:4), and the New Testament has a similar expressions, as when the lame man healed at the temple gate went “leaping” (hallomai) and praising God (Acts 3:8). Both words belong to the same activity of someone given over entirely to gladness before the Lord.
Scripture primarily connects this leaping joy with worship and thanks for the great providences God has displayed. Miriam led the women of Israel in dance after the crossing of the sea (Exodus 15:20,21). David danced before the ark with all his might (2 Samuel 6:14). The women of the cities came out dancing and singing to celebrate David’s victory (1 Samuel 18:6,7). Who can forget the father of the prodigal marking his son’s return with music and dancing (Luke 15:25)? In each of these scriptural snapshots, dancing is an act of worship or of household gladness toward the goodness of God. Without exception, it was practiced by one sex at a time.
Strangely, no biblical passage records mixed dancing. Wherever dancing appears as entertainment, the “entertained” are never known for their godliness. Job lists it among the marks of the household that says to God, “Depart from us” (Job 21:11-14). Herodias daughter danced before his court, which lead to John’s decapitation (Matthew 14:6). At Sinai, the people rose up to play, and Moses came down from the mountain to find them dancing around a golden calf. Later, Paul will excise the passage and tie it to fornication! (Exod 32:19; 1 Cor. 10:7,8). A frivolous household, a lustful court, and an idolatrous camp. Not exactly a sparkling trio.
II. The Pattern’s Seven Conclusions
Read all the passages together, and we see seven emerging distinctions:
1. Dancing was a religious act, practiced by the godly and ungodly alike.
2. Among the godly, it functioned as an expression of spiritual joy for Divine mercy given.
3. Men danced with men, and women with women.
4. We have no instance of mixed dancing.
5. Where dancing focuses on entertainment, it was regarded as revelry.
6. When dancing was purely for amusement, it carried no association with God’s glory.
7. Scripture nowhere examples dancing as a form of entertainment practiced between the sexes.
Honestly recognized…a pattern emerges.
III. The Argument from Silence Answered
The discerning reader will ask if an argument built on silence can bear any real weight. Scripture’s silence about something is not a prohibition all by itself. If it were, we could forbid a great many customs never mentioned in it. So the case for mixed dancing being wrong should not rest on absence. It rests, or rather it should rest, on three lines of converging good and necessary consequences. Only one of which is an argument from silence.
First, the pattern itself contradicts neutrality. Every time we see dance as worship it is single-sexed. Other than that, it is recounted as belonging to worldly, idolatrous, or sinful company. That is a repeated moral pattern that needs to be looked at. When a pattern is repeated in the Bible, it makes sense to ask why.
Second, and more directly, the Bible does not leave the people unaddressed. The word rendered “rioting” in Romans 13:13 and “revellings” in Galatians 5:21 and 1 Peter 4:3 komos, the party-circles of the Hellenistic world.2 Paul does not condemn dancing by itself. He condemns the komos, where dancing was the recognized centerpiece. He does so in three separate epistles, listing it alongside drunkenness, chambering, and wantonness. This was the expression of the old life a believer had put off. Now, the gap between pattern and command is lessened. The impulse is called out and forbidden. Dancing was simply the vehicle.
Third, Exodus records a case that is paradigmatic. When Israel made the golden calf, “the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play” (Exodus 32:6), and what that “play” included was “the calf, and the dancing” (Exodus 32:19). Paul turns this historical event, and holds it up to the church at Corinth as a warning: “Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them... Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition” (1 Corinthians 10:7, 11). Scripture’s first extended narrative account of dancing outside the worship of the triune God is an ensample. that is, a warning.
Put all three of these strands together, and something closer to a precept appears. I do not think this proves that every conceivable form of mixed movement to music is, in itself and in every culture, wrong. I do think it proves that the specific practice (mixed social dancing as entertainment), is what Paul forbids. If this holds, the burden of proof shifts to those that disassociate the dancing from the scriptural data.
IV. Worldly Conformity
“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2). The word translated “conformed”, syschematizo, has to do with rooting out the outward pattern, the schema, of the age. Next, is the exhortation to be “transformed” (metamorphoo), by a renewing of the whole inner disposition. The understanding, conscience, and will that moves the affections. Calvin’s comment on the verse:
The term world has several significations, but here it means the sentiments and the morals of men; to which, not without cause, he forbids us to conform. For since the whole world lies in wickedness, it behooveth us to put off whatever we have of the old man, if we would really put on Christ: and to remove all doubt, he explains what he means, by stating what is of a contrary nature; for he bids us to be transformed into a newness of mind.
— John Calvin, Commentary on Romans
Nowhere do we read the Scriptures condemning styles, traditions, or the ordinary aspects of civil life just because the world uses them. It is more narrow, condemning a mind and affections shaped by the culture. Given what the practice was made to do, enliven a party, stir up romantic affections between the sexes, following this performative element to its root, do we not uncover its purpose?
V. The Company We Keep
“For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries” (1 Peter 4:3). The word “lasciviousness”, aselgeia, conveys a lack of restraint, a wanton and unbridled desire of the flesh. Thayer defines it as unbridled lust manifesting in wanton acts and manners, including indecent bodily movement and the unchaste handling of one sex by the other.3 So, Peter is not inventing a new category of vice. He is identifying the clusters in Romans 13 and Galatians 5, revelling (komos) alongside excess of wine and abominable idolatries. This is the whole structure of pagan festivity the church had promised to renounced. If the dance floor fits this description, then a believer need not search for the word “dance” in the text, anymore than he needs to find the words insider trading, drunk driving, or identity theft.
III. The Argument from Silence Answered
The discerning reader will ask if an argument built on silence can bear any real weight. Scripture’s silence about something is not a prohibition all by itself. If it were, we could forbid a great many customs never mentioned in it. So the case for mixed dancing being wrong should not rest on absence. It rests, or rather it should rest, on three lines of converging good and necessary consequences. Only one of which is an argument from silence.
First, the pattern itself contradicts neutrality. Every time we see dance as worship it is single-sexed. Other than that, it is recounted as belonging to worldly, idolatrous, or sinful company. That is a repeated moral pattern that needs to be looked at. When a pattern is repeated in the Bible, it makes sense to ask why.
Second, and more directly, the Bible does not leave the people unaddressed. The word rendered “rioting” in Romans 13:13 and “revellings” in Galatians 5:21 and 1 Peter 4:3 komos, the party-circles of the Hellenistic world.2 Paul does not condemn dancing by itself. He condemns the komos, where dancing was the recognized centerpiece. He does so in three separate epistles, listing it alongside drunkenness, chambering, and wantonness. This was the expression of the old life a believer had put off. Now, the gap between pattern and command is lessened. The impulse is called out and forbidden. Dancing was simply the vehicle.
Third, Exodus records a case that is paradigmatic. When Israel made the golden calf, “the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play” (Exodus 32:6), and what that “play” included was “the calf, and the dancing” (Exodus 32:19). Paul turns this historical event, and holds it up to the church at Corinth as a warning: “Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them... Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition” (1 Corinthians 10:7, 11). Scripture’s first extended narrative account of dancing outside the worship of the triune God is an ensample. that is, a warning.
Put all three of these strands together, and something closer to a precept appears. I do not think this proves that every conceivable form of mixed movement to music is, in itself and in every culture, wrong. I do think it proves that the specific practice (mixed social dancing as entertainment), is what Paul forbids. If this holds, the burden of proof shifts to those that disassociate the dancing from the scriptural data.
IV. Worldly Conformity
“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2). The word translated “conformed”, syschematizo, has to do with rooting out the outward pattern, the schema, of the age. Next, is the exhortation to be “transformed” (metamorphoo), by a renewing of the whole inner disposition. The understanding, conscience, and will that moves the affections. Calvin’s comment on the verse:
The term world has several significations, but here it means the sentiments and the morals of men; to which, not without cause, he forbids us to conform. For since the whole world lies in wickedness, it behooveth us to put off whatever we have of the old man, if we would really put on Christ: and to remove all doubt, he explains what he means, by stating what is of a contrary nature; for he bids us to be transformed into a newness of mind.
— John Calvin, Commentary on Romans
Nowhere do we read the Scriptures condemning styles, traditions, or the ordinary aspects of civil life just because the world uses them. It is more narrow, condemning a mind and affections shaped by the culture. Given what the practice was made to do, enliven a party, stir up romantic affections between the sexes, following this performative element to its root, do we not uncover its purpose?
V. The Company We Keep
“For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries” (1 Peter 4:3). The word “lasciviousness”, aselgeia, conveys a lack of restraint, a wanton and unbridled desire of the flesh. Thayer defines it as unbridled lust manifesting in wanton acts and manners, including indecent bodily movement and the unchaste handling of one sex by the other.3 So, Peter is not inventing a new category of vice. He is identifying the clusters in Romans 13 and Galatians 5, revelling (komos) alongside excess of wine and abominable idolatries. This is the whole structure of pagan festivity the church had promised to renounced. If the dance floor fits this description, then a believer need not search for the word “dance” in the text, anymore than he needs to find the words insider trading, drunk driving, or identity theft.
VI. What Does the World Say?
We should be satisfied to rest the case on Scripture alone. Yet it is worth noting that the world has never been shy about the underlying motive. Fred Astaire, speaking of his celebrated and comparatively tame dancing with Ginger Rogers, said openly that they “accomplished sex through dance”. The Encyclopedia Britannica’s section on the art of dance describes the end product of social dancing, across all time, as “physical pleasure in the activity of dancing and sexual awareness of a partner, whether embraced or half-consciously observed.”4 Collier’s Encyclopedia describes the social dance as, historically, the joint product of “physical exuberance and sex stimuli.”5 None of these sources write as a Puritan.
This is only corroboration, of course. A Christian does not need Fred Astaire’s point of view on social dancing. But when the world’s own definition matches the Bible’s (almost thought for thought), it should at minimum, cause us to reject the temptation to relegate the church’s position to old and crusty history.
Much of what prompts this question is the wedding reception itself in our modern age. Increasingly, a bride and groom are asked to consider hiring a DJ and opening a dance floor at some point in the evening. I want to say clearly that nothing in this paper is meant to cast doubt on the goodness of feasting, music, or bodily joy at a wedding. Scripture rejoices in weddings. The Song of Solomon is rather bold on a husband and wife’s delight in each other, and a wedding feast is Christ’s own picture of eternity (Revelation 19:7-9). Joy, music, and even movement belong at a wedding. The question is is what form? Is dancing the vehicle that our joy should take?
To any who remain unpersuaded, I would press one more point. Paul was willing to never eat meat again (a thing lawful in itself), rather than risk bruising the conscience of a brother (1 Corinthians 8:13). “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth” (Romans 14:21). Even the one who thinks this exegesis is more approximate certain, they should answer the deeper question of what is lost by declining this amusement? What can be done for the sake of the weaker brother? “Abstain from all appearance of evil” (1 Thessalonians 5:22) is a cautionary step, when you don’t need certainty to see the potential danger.
None of this is said to shame those who, out of ignorance, have allowed mixed dancing. Neither do we place this question on the same footing as the articles of the faith. It is to point out the biblical data, along with the near-unanimous witness of the church across the two thousand years of her history.
Conclusion
What do we make of all this? None of this proceeds from a distaste for joy or for the body God made. It comes from taking seriously that the same Lord who commanded Miriam’s timbrel, also commanded His people to no longer live, “in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness” (Romans 13:13), and that these are not two different gods speaking, but One God over all, blessed forever.
Friend, “The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light” (Romans 13:12). “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Ephesians 5:11). Our Christian heritage wrote as they did on the subject of dancing with these texts open before them. But also with a deep love for the souls entrusted to them. May the Lord grant us the same humility to receive correction if we need it, and the same courage to give it when asked.
Notes
1. The relevant occurrences: Exodus 15:20–21; 32:19; Judges 11:34; 21:21, 23; 1 Samuel 18:6–7; 30:16; 2 Samuel 6:14, 16, 20–23; 1 Chronicles 15:29; Job 21:11; Psalm 30:11; 149:3; 150:4; Ecclesiastes 3:4; Isaiah 13:21; Jeremiah 31:4, 13; Lamentations 5:15; Matthew 11:17; 14:6; Mark 6:22; Luke 7:32; 15:25.
2. On komos as the technical term has an association with professional dancing, see the standard lexical treatment in Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament.
3. Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament.
4. Encyclopaedia Britannica, “The Art of Dance,” 1979 ed., vol. 5, 455–456.
5. Collier’s Encyclopedia, “Dance,” 1964 ed., vol. 7, 683.
Appendix: A Sampling of Historical Testimony
What follows is offered as corroborating witness only.
From “A Sermon on the Sinfulness of Dancing,” The National Preacher and Village Pulpit, 1867
Let not our youth and maidens deceive themselves. The social dance cannot make proper those motions of the body and that familiarity with the person which are universally condemned... In this view of the matter the Westminster divines placed dancing in the list of things forbidden by the seventh commandment. They understood its tendency and were not under the influence of foolish prudery.
A life of humble piety is a standing rebuke to sin; but is sin rebuked when piety is thus concealed? Let a church become addicted to this pastime. Let the pastor, elders, deacons, and all the members indulge in it, would she not be shorn of her strength and wholly paralyzed?
Thomas Watson
Take heed of mixed dancing. Dances are instruments of wantonness. From dancing, people come to dalliance with another, and from dalliance to uncleanness. ‘There is,’ says Calvin, ‘for the most part, some unchaste behavior in dancing.’ Dances draw the heart to folly by wanton gestures, by unchaste touches, and by lustful looks.
J. C. Ryle
Concerning dancing, or going to balls, I only ask Christians to judge the amusement by its tendencies and accomplishments... If dancing were taken up for mere exercise, if dancing took place at early hours, and men only danced with men, and women with women, it would be needless and absurd to object to it. But everybody knows that this is not what is meant by modern dancing.
Who would like to be found in a modern dance-hall when the Lord Jesus Christ comes the second time?
Wilhelmus à Brakel
Dancing has always been despised by the saints and held in contempt by civilized heathen. It neither proceeds from God nor is commanded anywhere; rather, it proceeds from the world and belongs to the lusts of the flesh and the lusts of the eyes (1 John 2:16), as well as to the unfruitful works of darkness (Ephesians 5:11).
Westminster Larger Catechism, Q. 139
The sins forbidden in the seventh commandment... idleness, gluttony, drunkenness, unchaste company; lascivious songs, books, pictures, dancings, stage plays; and all other provocations to, or acts of, uncleanness, either in ourselves or others.
Thomas Boston
Promiscuous dancing, or dancing of men and women together. This entertainment, however reckoned innocent among many, is evidently an incentive to lust, Isaiah 23:15–17... It is offensive to the grave and pious, is condemned by our church, yea, and has been condemned by some sober heathens.
Chrysostom (4th century)
Where dancing is, there is the devil. For God did not give us our feet for this end, that we might demean ourselves indecently; but that we might walk decently... Dancing is the devil’s invention.
The Councils
The fifty-third canon of the Synod of Laodicea enacts: ‘Christians when coming to weddings must not caper or dance; but dine or sup decently as becomes Christian people.’ The eighth ecumenical council (in Trullo, A.D. 692) enacts: ‘We also forbid and expel all public dances of women, as producing much injury and ruin.’
The Scottish Assemblies
The Westminster Assembly’s Larger Catechism, Question 139, declares lascivious dancing and stage-plays breaches of the seventh commandment. The Scottish Assembly of 1649, ‘finding the scandal and abuse that arises through promiscuous dancing, do therefore inhibit and discharge the same.’ The Assembly of 1701 revived the same discipline.
Matthew Henry, on Judges 21
The dancing was very modest and chaste. It was not mixed dancing; no men danced with these daughters of Shiloh, nor did any married women so far forget their gravity as to join with them.
R. L. Dabney
The Scripture has virtually included the modern dance in an express prohibition in three places, Romans 13:13, Galatians 5:21, 1 Peter 4:3, where it sternly inhibits the komos of the heathen... The dancing of females with males for social amusement would have been regarded as an act so inconsistent with decency that an instance can scarcely be heard of in reputable society.