Refiner’s Fire: God’s People Are Dancing—Again

God’s people have always danced. Throughout history, they have danced to celebrate and give thanks for God’s mighty acts.

Most biblical dances appear to have been spontaneous expressions of thanksgiving. One of the first of these came after the Red Sea crossing when Miriam “… took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and dancing” (Exod. 15:20). By contrast, Exodus 32:17–19 describes dancing around the golden calf that was profane and performed for purposes other than for glorifying God.

Little sacred dancing is found between King David’s reign and Christ’s birth. It is understandable that when the Israelites were in captivity under the Babylonians they had little to celebrate. Their joy ceased and their dancing “turned into mourning” (Lam. 5:15). Finally, they were absorbed into the Roman Empire, and while many Jews (and Gentiles) became Christian converts, many ancient worship forms remained in disuse because the Jews generally rejected anything that resembled the Roman way of life—such things as pagan festivals and dancing.

The early church fathers preached against theater and dance in order to purify the church of all traces of paganism (although isolated instances of sacred dance occurred throughout the early, Medieval, and Renaissance periods). Dramatic masses were performed throughout the early centuries, and the mass itself, developed during and following the sixth century, was considered a highly formalized sacred dance.

There were two distinct kinds of sacred dance in Medieval times: dancing in the mass, and dancing in churchyards during holy festivals. The latter dances were often accompanied by revelry and drinking, however, and the church hierarchy began a series of prohibitions against them that led finally to prohibiting sacred dance within the mass. Dance manias of the fourteenth century saw people sometimes dancing themselves into frenzies in order to be healed of the plague or exorcized from demon possession.

During the Renaissance, religious dancing found its way into the life of the people outside of church services—in miracle, mystery, and morality plays that had religious themes, but which actually were spoofs of the religious hierarchy and not true expressions of religious ideals.

With the Reformation came further suppression of art, theater, and dance as a renunciation of all that seemed worldly. The early Reformers considered the body less important than the soul and the mind. The liturgy of the Catholic Counter Reformation likewise allowed little creativity, and it soon became subdued and passive.

By the eighteenth century in America, one religious group, the Shakers, incorporated dance into their services as a means of freeing the body of sins and worldly tensions. The Puritans in eighteenth-century America deemed all idle pleasure sinful—particularly mixed dancing.

The Industrial Revolution further intensified the separation of mind, body, and soul. Humans became extensions of the great machines, mindless and soulless, and dance became a means of escape, not an expression of one’s self.

But in the early twentieth century, self-expression became important, particularly within the arts. Modern dance drew its movement from the emotional psyche of each dancer rather than from the ethereal subject matter of nineteenth-century ballets. Some subjects were religious in nature. Dancers Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn explored religious themes with their dance company, Denishawn, and one of their students, Martha Graham, experimented with religious themes, as did some of her colleagues. Modern dance helped society rediscover the body as an instrument of self-expression, and it further aided the church in the rediscovery of the body as an instrument of celebration.

Protestant churches and organizations, and individual Christian artists, are using dance in sacred worship. The Sacred Dance Guild of Berkeley, California, and the Sharing Company, publishers in Austin, Texas, are bringing together materials, ideas, and dancers concerned with sacred themes. Doug Adams of the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California, has encouraged historical research into liturgical dance and, with Judith Rock, conducts workshops to encourage congregations to use dance as an expression of worship. Liturgical dance companies have sprung up across the U.S., and Christians in professional ballet—such as Gregory Mitchell of New York City’s Feld Ballet and Kathy Thibodeaux, a 1982 Silver Medalist in the International Ballet Competition—are making statements about the integration of their faith and their dancing.

Evangelical churches and colleges are beginning to use creative movements in Palm Sunday processionals, and for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter celebrations. Some missionaries are being trained in dramatic movement and gesture in order to further their communication with those to whom they minister.

One dancer-seminarian suggests that dancing itself is “incarnational.” It is worship through the use of the body as well as the creative mind and emotions. It is spirit centered. If God became flesh through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, surely the flesh is an honorable aspect of our humanity (see 1 Cor. 15:40).

So, let us stand up out of our pews and move, if we are so called, to dance again—just as God’s people have done throughout history.

Mrs. Whiteman teaches physical education and dance at Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California.

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