SOURCE: Spirit of Truth, Volume 15, August 1991

Lethal Perils of Dancing

by Robert R. Taylor, Jr.

Lethal refers to what is deadly; perils refer to what is dangerous. Dancing is both dangerous and deadly. It is dangerous because it is permeated with fleshly lusts--licentiousness, lasciviousness, revelings, etc. It is deadly because it wars against the soul (1 Peter 2:11) and frequently is a passionate prelude to overt fornication or adultery. In fact, it is to fornication and adultery what heavy petting is in a parked car--a fleshly feeder of such. ONLY THE NAIVE WILL DENY IT OF SUCH PASSIONATE POWERS.

Factual Witnesses to its Lethal Perils

Some years back the FBI put out a tract in which they listed six ways young people get hurt. Nearly twenty years ago I used this as the book title for a volume that has been studied by tens of thousands of young people--How Young People Get Hurt. Dancing was one of the six. The other five were drinking, gambling, reckless driving, parking and petting, and mixed swimming. I added several more to the book I penned under that heading.

J. Edgar Hoover, former director of the FBI, once said, "Most juvenile crime has its inception in the dance hall, either public or private." Mr. Hoover was in position to know whereof he spoke.

A medical doctor before the Medical Association of New Jersey once said, "Dance halls are the modern nurseries of divorce courts, training shops of prostitution, and graduating schools of infamy and vice."

A matron of a home for fallen women in Los Angeles, CA, has said, "Seven-tenths of the girls received here have fallen through the dance and its influence.

An ex-dancing master and champion dancer of the Pacific Dancer's Association said, "I shall be happy if I can lead one-fiftieth of the number to Christ that I have led to ruin." He was not overly optimistic relative to reclaiming dancing degenerates was he?

Some years ago Memphis, Tennessee schools called a halt to sponsoring proms, sock hops, and dances for junior and senior high schools. Why? A top administrator answered,

The dances had become too difficult to supervise and control... Many of the students were leaving before the dances were over, holding parties of their own after the dances and going off to such places as Sardis Lake.

One who thinks they were going to parties to PRAY or the lakesides down in Mississippi to review their next Sunday School lessons is mighty naive relative to fleshly practices that come regularly and clock-like subsequent to passionate dancing episodes.

A young man in high school in a northern state once told me that the fellows at his school told him that they attended dances for ONE reason. They wanted sex partners for the night and dances are excellent places for such passionate pick-ups.

Forty-four young men were once asked what were their thoughts as they danced with beautiful girls. Forty-one said their thoughts were impure. The other three doubtless had the same, but probably did not consider such thinking as impure but rather normal. Is anyone so naive as not to know what such young men will attempt to do subsequent to the dance and prior to getting their already inflamed dates home in the wee hours of the night?

A man once danced with a beautiful young girl young enough to be his daughter. He did not want their dancing to end. She complained of his staying so near her all the evening. She should have known what was the drawing card--her bodily charms which the dance allowed him to enjoy to a degree.

Those not homosexual or lesbians do not dance with people of their own sex. They want dancing partners of the opposite sex.

Some people once planned a dance for some military men. They forgot the FLESHLY IMPERATIVE. They failed to invite any girls. The military men were not interested in the exercise of dancing or the improving of their social graces by dancing with each other. That dance ended before it even got started! Why? No sexually attractive dancing partners were present! That is why the men came!

Men do not want their dancing partners overdressed. Underdressed is much more to their lustful liking. Famed designer of women's clothes in Paris, France, Christian Dior, is on newspaper record in his home as saying...

For the first time I have done away with the corsets even for dance dresses. I have often heard men complaining that in dancing they couldn't feel a living form under women's corsets.

Did someone say dancing is just for exercise or to improve one's social graces? Lustful men desire to feel a living, vibrant, and moving body under the flimsy garments of their dancing partners. Dancing instructors have said one should not look at the heads and feet of dancers but at their abdominal regions. THIS IS WHERE THE ACTION IS. This is what they wish to keep glued together. Dancing allows men to get their hands on and their bodies close to willing females. Kathyrn Murray, wife of Arthur Murray, has said for years that the female partner has to yield her body completely to her male partner in order ot dance properly. this is but frequently a prelude to a fuller surrender she makes to him when the dance is over and they are alone. (last sentence of this paragraph was unreadable on my copy, DRL).

Scriptural Condemnation of its Lethal Perils

Upon his first descent from Sinai in receiving the Decalogue Moses found flesh-minded Israel dancing, playing, naked, immorally engaged, and worshipping an idol (Ex 32:19ff; 1 Cor 10:7). Dancing Salome in Matthew 14 and Mark 6 cost John his head. Many a man has lost his head figuratively at a dance or that to which it contributes with fleshly ease.

In Galatians 5:19-21 Paul lists the works of the flesh. Practioners of such are hell-bound for sure. Once such work is that of lasciviousness. Thayer defines this word to mean "filthy words, indecent bodily movements, unchaste handling of males and females." This gets the dance whether it is a close embrace or the wild, suggestive bodily gyrations that can be as explosive as close adbominal contacts. One appeals to sensual sexuality in both men and women. A dance sponsored by a Memphis denomination some years back offered half-price to all girls who came dressed in "hot pants"-- the rage at the time. Boys had to pay regular price but were told to "Come and enjoy the scenery"--i.e., the leg exposure show. The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, TN did a fleshly feature on the popular movie of "Dirty Dancing" and what it has triggered in the dancing environment. It showed pictures of two young couples with limbs closely entwined and bodies glued to each other as they were trying out "their 'dirty dancing' moves" at a local dance hall. One revealing paragraph of the fleshly feature read,

Out struts an adventurous vixen in a miniskirt. No underpants, no inhibitions. A couple of carefully calculated high kicks and, by audience acclamation, she's the winner. Her partner didn't have to be present to win.

It made several of the dancing couples who were trying to win the dancing contest cry "Unfair." All this is lasciviousness gone to seed--sexual seed--and then some!

Another word in the Galatian account is that of "revelings." Liddell and Scott in their Greek-English Lexicon define it as "a jovial feast with music and dancing." Need I say more about the proper placement of dancing?

A young lady who professed to be a Christian once asked her boy friend as they were dancing, "George, are you a Christian?" He responded promptly by saing, "IF I WERE, I WOULD NOT BE HERE!" Enough said!

Conclusion:

Dancing is totally incompatible with such passages as Matthew 5:8; 1 Thessalonians 4:1-7; 1 Timothy 4:12; 5:1,2; 2 Timothy 2:22; 1 Corinthians 6:13-20; 10:30-33; 1 Peter 1:15-16, and 1 John 3:3. A quick, unbiased reading of these purity and holiness passages will exhibit clearly the incompatibility between dancing and dedication to Christ as Christians. DANCING IS A SURE WAY TO GET HURT.