Homeschool News & Views #5

From Homeschool Helpers

By Dan L. White

Two Dances

Today I want to take you with me to visit two dances. Two dances, held by two different Christian groups.

A minority of Christians don’t believe in any dancing at all. Some might say that all dancing is sin. Others immediately call to mind the dancing of David when he was moving the ark of the covenant. David danced vigorously and joyfully, and God was obviously pleased with that dancing. God had not been pleased when David had moved the ark without following God’s instructions, and Uzzah died because of that. When David danced at the moving of the ark, nobody died, and it was indeed a joyful occasion, with the dancing helping to show that joy.

2Sa 6:12-16, World English Bible

(12) It was told king David, saying, Yahweh has blessed the house of Obed-Edom, and all that pertains to him, because of the ark of God. David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom into the city of David with joy.

(13) It was so, that, when those who bore the ark of Yahweh had gone six paces, he sacrificed an ox and a fattened calf.

(14) David danced before Yahweh with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod.

(15) So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of Yahweh with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet.

(16) It was so, as the ark of Yahweh came into the city of David, that Michal the daughter of Saul looked out at the window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before Yahweh; and she despised him in her heart.

The one who did the dancing was accepted by God, and the one who didn’t like it never had children after that.

Dancing is mentioned elsewhere in the Bible as an expression of joy and worship.

Psa 87:5-7, Good News Bible

(5) Of Zion it will be said that all nations belong there and that the Almighty will make her strong.

(6) The LORD will write a list of the peoples and include them all as citizens of Jerusalem.

(7) They dance and sing, "In Zion is the source of all our blessings."

Psa 149:1-3, World English Bible

(1) Praise Yahweh! Sing to Yahweh a new song, his praise in the assembly of the saints.

(2) Let Israel rejoice in him who made them. Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.

(3) Let them praise his name in the dance! Let them sing praises to him with tambourine and harp!

There dancing and singing are equal ways of praising God.

A couple of other favorable mentions of dancing are:

Ecc 3:4, WEB

(4) a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

Jer 31:10-13, WEB

(10) Hear the word of Yahweh, you nations, and declare it in the islands afar off; and say, He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as shepherd does his flock.

(11) For Yahweh has ransomed Jacob, and redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he.

(12) They shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow to the goodness of Yahweh, to the grain, and to the new wine, and to the oil, and to the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all.

(13) Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old together; for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow.

There is a modern day movement called the Messianic movement, and one aspect of this is what is call Davidic dance, which they do on the Sabbath. I have no idea if these dances actually stem from the time of David or not, but they are pleasant to watch, emphasizing hand movement as much as foot movement, and the Messianic music is very interesting to one who has played music for fifty years.

Some Christians are against only the dancing which they consider improper, being more like that which would occur in a barroom than that which David was doing to praise God. There is a lot of dancing today which would certainly fit the category of not praising God. And certainly not pleasing to God.

The jitterbug-lindy type dance was popular in the 1920’s and 30’s. It was danced to up tempo jazz music, and was a vigorous and athletic type dance. That slowed down somewhat with the big bands of the thirties and forties, and the ballrooms were full of fox trots and box steps. In the fifties a milder form of the jitterbug came back, rock n’ roll dancing. I tried to learn that at the time, but didn’t, mostly because the girls could never explain to me exactly what they were doing.

As I hit my high school years, Chubby Checker brought The Twist into American dance, and dancing would never be the same after that. Dancing stopped being coordinated movements with a partner, and began to be solo gyrations. I had had trouble learning rock n’ roll partner dances, but I thought that surely I could do the twist. In fact my brain did know how to do the twist – there was very little cerebral activity involved – but my body did not. Even at that young age I was somewhat stiff, and my version of the twist involved me standing there, moving only my arms and my eyes from side to side in rhythm to the beat.

More partner-less dances came along, like the Mashed Potatoes, the Watusi, and the Jerk. I remember trying the Jerk in public only one time. As I was putting myself fully into it at a high school dance, trying very hard to be cool before all the other high school kids, who were also trying to be cool, a friend yelled loudly across the dance floor – “Hey, White – you look like you’re digging potatoes!” That night I learned two things about the Jerk. One, I shouldn’t do it, and two, my friend was one.

Today the Twist and the Jerk have devolved to the point where modern bump and grind dancing was described by a school teacher as “sex with clothes on.” The worst of it is known as “freakin,” which is only a thinly veiled euphemism for the other “f” word, which is a gutter word to describe sex without clothes on.

How did we go down this path in dancing? How did we go from the Fox Trot to the Dog Trot?

Nobody could stand up and say – “Stop. That’s immoral,” because the schools had lost the base for morality. It even became wrong to say something was wrong. The only limiting controls were whatever people would accept at the time. The more time went on, the more people would accept. Today it has gone just about as far as it can go. How does public school dancing get any worse than it is today?

So let’s go ahead and visit those two dances I mentioned.

The first one is a church dance. The air is clear. No cigarette smoke. Most of these young people, although they attend Christian churches, also attend the public schools, which are decidedly anti-Christian. The language at the dance is mostly clean but some profanity does creep in. As ABC’s John Stossel once showed with high school video clips, the cool language in the public schools is obscene. The music is of a hip hop style, a mindless repetition of overemphasized rhythm, with poetry composed by high school flunkout types who couldn’t read McGuffey’s Second Reader. The lyrics of this music -- which is not really music -- are not clean. They are sexual in nature. And that matches the dancing. Any average male who is dancing or watching will become very aware that he is a male.

There are some Christian homeschool students and graduates at this church dance. They are not taking part in this sexually suggestive dancing. Such activity was not a part of their school culture. They have not learned it, and they don’t like it. They move to a corner. But the corner is not retreat enough from the sexual scene on the floor, so the boys purposely turn their backs to the dance floor, and carry on their conversations at that angle. Finally, some just leave. They were raised as Christian homeschoolers, and that is not their idea of how Christ wants them to be, as unmarried young Christians, even if it is a church dance.

They are highly offended and disgusted.

To the public school Christian kids, this dancing and this music seems normal, and therefore doesn’t seem bad. They might even declare that they have taken a step back from the really lewd stuff at their high schools. But they have spent years being educated in this public school culture, and they are it. How could they be otherwise? Eight hours a day, five days a week, of freakin language, freakin music, freakin dancing and freakin thinkin. Even the best of them are brought down from where they would be otherwise.

These young people are like the children who followed the pied piper. He piped, and the children had to dance along. The public school culture is so strong that it carries all in it along with it, to a more or less degree. The great majority of public school kids from Christian homes get swept right out of the faith. Even those who don’t leave Christ totally are surely greatly affected by the culture in which they have spent so much of their lives being trained. Most of the bad learning in the public schools does not occur in the classroom but in the culture. But in order to get away from that culture, you have to get out of their classrooms.

Now go with me to another dance. This is a Christian homeschool Contre Dance, where the dancers line up in two opposing lines, like square dancing except in lines instead of squares. We arrive at the gym and begin the set up process. As the homeschool students and alumni arrive, they jump in and help us set up the tables, chairs and food.

After a half hour or so, the music starts. The music is reel dance fiddle music, like Irish jigs which have been Americanized. Much of it is played live by student musicians. This one homeschool group has two Missouri state champion fiddle players, and more may be on the way. As the flying music begins, it’s just about impossible to keep both feet still at the same time, so why try?

The dancers line up for the Virginia Reel. Their clothing is varied and modest, some jeans, some elegant long dresses on the girls. Their clothing is not slavish to the public school fads, so jeans with holes in them are just jeans with holes in them and what idiot wants to dress like that? The students are from all over the mid-Missouri area, and they don’t all know one another, but they quickly fall in as friends. There are no cliques. Everybody wants to make sure that no one is left out. There is no coolth here. Just warmth.

A right hand swing, a left hand swing, a do si do and down the line they go. People have danced like this for centuries, and it is just as much fun now as it was for George and Martha. This dancing is cerebral, fully involving the mind as much as the body. And very interesting, as some of the dances will have you dancing not just with your one partner, but with every other lady or gentleman on the floor. Talk about mixers!

Later in the evening, the dancing is varied by doing English Country Dances, as were seen in the movie Pride and Prejudice. This dancing is performed to classical style music, and is very elegant. It is similar to American Reel Dancing, but not so vigorous, and possibly a bit more involved in its patterns. There are 2000 dances to learn, so I guess them there English were smart people.

This type of dancing, having stood the test of centuries, is becoming more and more popular today, and was recently mentioned by Andree Seu in World Magazine. Although homeschool students aren’t overly concerned with the latest fashions which come along, in being involved in Contre Dancing, also called Contra or Country Dancing, they have caught a popular wave. Apparently a growing number of young people are willing to trade the bump and grind for the right hand swing and the do si do.

The dancing goes on continually for four hours, with only short breaks between dances to recuperate. There are no lapses into boredom, and with about 70 students and alumni present, not counting adults and youngsters, the participation rate is one hundred per cent. The behavior of these young people is – well, Christian. There are no sexual gyrations. There are no sexual lyrics. There are no profane words. This is the culture of the Christian homeschoolers. They are not trying to be cool. They are just trying to be Christian.

As the coordinator for the event, I mostly stay in the background, letting it flow as it will, and trying always to see that it proceeds in a Godly manner. Indeed it does. Everything about the evening is uplifting. As with David, this dancing is something God can be pleased with.

Two dances, two cultures, two tracks for young people’s lives. One track leads to shake your booty. The other leads to curtsy to your partner. One track leads away from Christ, the other leads toward Him.

I encourage churches not to ever have a hip hop freakin dance, even if that is all your young people know. It stinks to high heaven, and we all know it. Try this alternative folk dancing. It is more fun than any dancing you’ve ever done.

Further, I encourage you parents to pull your precious young people not just out of those freakin dances, but out of that whole freakin culture. There is a far better way. Christian homeschooling is it.

This is Dan White. God bless the Christian homeschoolers.