I believe that the brethren whom I quote fairly represent the position of the evangelical ministry on this serious question. It is of the world, and belongs to the world, and must be classed with those things of which God says, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world." Gaines, pastor of the Glasgow Baptist Church: "I think a tract of yours on the modern dance would do much good.
Wood, pastor of Pollard Baptist Church in Ashland: "Modern dancing is one of the most deplorable things in the life of any follower of Christ. Breland of First Baptist Church in Richmond, Ky.: "I look upon public dancing as one of the most insidious evils, with which we must face in our religious program today. Some dance advocates make a lot of reference to certain references to dance in the Bible.
Of the dancing of children referred to in the Bible, it may be the two sexes. Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and the harp. Although this is questioned by some high authority, to allow for a moment that it does, I may not ask, does not misdirect the attraction of the grace it furnishes.
Of the many teachings of Catholics that amount to dancing as we do is wrong, space allows only three quotes.
Scriptures Against the Dance
A canvass of New York's red-light district a few years ago revealed that three out of every four women contacted came into their lives of shame through dance. Whitmore in her time head of the Door of Hope Mission, New York, during her long years of service in that most gracious work, found that seven out of every ten fallen girls who came to her, gave the dance as occasion. of their destruction. He has a volume full of startling revelations about the evils of dancing.
The main attraction of the dance lies in the charm of the sexes and the possibilities for contacts in the dance that cannot be tolerated elsewhere. There are many modest, pure ladies who dance." If this is true, they are so in spite of the dance. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.' the higher social circles, we are told, had their origins in the brothel. Over and over again from the steps of my study, when on summer evenings the pastor of West Broadway Baptist Church watched the dancers in the dance hall next door as them.
The dancing church member argues and protests as he or she may, testifying to a complete disregard for the command not to "love the world and the things that are in the world." That too, in view of the fact that such a culture, if it can be called that, has in countless cases proved a curse and stain to this life, to say nothing of the life to come. May we not understand that its frequent repetition represents something of its importance in the mind of the Master.
What about the spiritual vision of those who see no harm in dance. It is certain that in countless cases the sweet of the dance has turned into the bitter. Since those who believe that dancing is wrong and only wrong have the Word of God and all the fruits of dance in their favor, I gladly take my stand with them.
How do you think you, with their affections in heaven, could find pleasure in joining the world in the labyrinth of the vertiginous dance? The world certainly loves the dance, because it is of the earthly nature, and because it is what it is, God hates it.
This much may be said of the dancing masters or mistresses, as the case may be, as far as I am advised, they have never had the affront to assert that their schools conferred any spiritual benefit on their pupils. Girls dancing alone and boys alone, I must think to be healthy; but as to the health of the dance as we have it today, that is another question altogether. Late hours, the manner of dressing on the part of the ladies, over exercise, unnecessary stimulation are all unhealthy phases of the modern dance.
Forty-six of the fifty answered that it was "positively injurious to health." A number expressed the belief that dancing was a nuisance to the dancers' moral as well as physical health. One of the great surgeons of John Hopkins wrote in his time: "The sensual dance brings the nation to moral bankruptcy." So you see, as is so often evident from this message, that the dance strikes its deadliest blow against morality. A few have dared to advocate the dance on the plea that it is an intellectual stimulant.
This complaint against the fact that the unlearned savages, the illiterate negroes, and the patients in our lunatic asylums furnish us with many of the most accomplished dancers, is certainly a proof of it. Does anyone ask, "Is not the introduction of dance into our high schools and colleges a proof that it is innocent, desirable and wholesome?". Introducing dance into our schools no more proves that it is desirable than hiring some evolutionists to teach it does not prove that evolution is a correct theory.
The refusal of the Louisville school board to permit "Billy" Sunday to address the high school assembly in no way proved that he was not a fit person to address such a body. The introduction of dance into our schools simply proves that worldly and unspiritual people, because of the blindness and because of the difference of the Christian people, are in authority in these matters. A Christian school, which even permits dancing to encourage it at all, has become largely unchristian in its attitude towards this menace to the social order.
Why should Christians put in the money to build schools, endow, and pay faculties and provide pupils to teach them to do that which all the creeds of Christianity condemn as evil and only evil and this was actually the occasion of the fall of about two thirds of the more than 200,000 prostitutes in our country. What's more, while dancing in college life may attract some students, it also loses students whose parents want their daughters in an untainted atmosphere. Humanity is humanity and the appeal of the dance in its final analysis is the same everywhere.
