In 1952 I attended the Synod of the Gereformeerde Kerken in the Netherlands as a delegate of our Church. My wife and I intended to worship in one of the churches nearest the place where we stayed. We located it on Saturday evening and made acquaintance with the custodian. While we were chatting with him his daughter and her husband passed by and said that they were on their way to a dance hall. Apparently this met with his approval for he wished them an enjoyable evening.
We hardly surmised that something similar would happen here among us in 1980. If the Board of Trustees of Calvin College and Seminary has its way, it will. The board desires that secular dancing be introduced at Calvin. A committee has been appointed to study the question whether that should be done.
THE OCCASION. The occasion for Synod’s action in 1966 in reversing the stand of the Church on the movie matter was an overture from a Classis, which asserted that 70% of its young people were attending movies. The occasion for the Board of Trustees’ proposal that the secular dance be introduced at Calvin is that students are already dancing in the halls of the dormitories. Some, perhaps many, love dancing and have made it a part of their life-style. The board, of which the larger number are ministers, proposes that the Church make that which, till now, was against the rules, legitimate. The board contends that the dance must “be brought under the control of the redeeming power of our Lord.” That, it claims, is our cultural mandate. Which, of course, means that till now our Church and its members have neglected their sacred duty and not really understood what their cultural mandate was.
WHAT IS THE SITUATION? The Christian Reformed Church does not condone secular dancing. For 125 years it has held that the dance is a worldly entertainment.
Dr. Abraham Kuyper, the staunch advocate of the antithesis, of whom we are proud to be followers, until his death denounced secular dancing as a sinful entertainment. “De Heraut,” a popular religious periodical of which he was the founder and editor, maintained until its demise that secular dancing should be condemned.
It is no secret that elders and deacons and their wives have adopted social dancing as a part of their life-style. Notwithstanding the fact that Christians, according to God’s Word, “have their citizenship in heaven” (Philippians 3:20), and their names “written in the Book of life” (Philippians 4:3) they indulge in promiscuous dancing in public dance halls. They patronize a business that has been and is a threat to the purity of the Church.
Calvin College and Seminary students are dancing in the dormitories and in public dance halls. On a main highway leading into Grand Rapids a “Calvin Dance” is being advertised. An increasing number of members in good and regular standing dance.
How a promiscuous dance can be “brought under the control of the power of our Lord” is a mystery to me. I have never heard of anyone doing it. Maybe the board means that each individual must put his personal dance under that control. Does that hold for his or her partner also?
According to the findings of the board with respect to the introduction of the social dance at Calvin 8 of 9 Classes, 135 of 159 churches, 4 of 5 organizations, and 93 of 95 individuals that responded to a poll, were opposed to it. In spite of the fact that a large majority is opposed, the board said it was ready to implement its own decision in favor of dancing.
The student body of Calvin College and Seminary is cosmopolitan. It consists of Jew and Gentiles, believers and unbelievers, members of the red, yellow, black, and white races. We may not be racially prejudiced and must respect the rights of minorities. Neither should we forget what God says, “Do not be mismated with unbelievers. For what partnership have righteousness and iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? (2 Corinthians 6:14, 15). Call that discrimination. And that it is, but it is well-pleasing to our Lord.
What will happen? When action is taken on the proposal of the board it will be a decision of the Christian Reformed Church, for our College and Seminary are not controlled by society, but by the denomination. In other words, action favorable to the board’s desire will be an approval of secular dancing for our people in Grand Rapids, but also for our people in every village and city. Dance studios will, at least temporarily, do a booming business and a Saturday Night’s Fever will not be a rare thing for the dancers.
Local churches, if they don’t want their members to go to sweaty dance halls that reek of a mixture of every brand of whisky on the market, will have to provide a place, even as Calvin will be doing. They will also have to engage someone to temper jazz and rock and roll music as Calvin intends to do.
I regret that Synod charged the appointed committee to give guide–lines. That seems to imply that Synod believes pro-promiscuous dancing will be approved in 1980. That part of Synod’s decision is presumptuous and wholly unwarranted. If Synod approves secular dancing, no board or College is going to restrict the sexual drive. No guidelines or ordinances are going to restrain people from frequenting taverns, dance halls, casinos, and cabarets.
As an aftermath of World War II, the Korean War, and a senseless Vietnam War we are living in a society that has little respect for authority, is committed to permissiveness, to a more liberal way of living, and to the free use of alcoholic beverages and. drugs. The affluence of today, instead of producing a life of gratitude and dedication to God, is drawing professing Christians away from Him. Lack of spirituality plagues our Church. A clarion call by our Church for a closer walk wit h God and to bring our lives completely under the lordship of our Savior, is urgent.
In an era when amorality, immorality, secularism, sensuality and humanism are rampant and we all have become more liberal in our personal behavior and manner of living (there is no sense in trying to deny it) we are petitioned to lower the bar still more and approve a morally questionable entertainment—the secular dance.
AN OPINION. Mention is made by the board of the decisions of 1966 and 1971. The advisory committee of the 1978 Synod has justly said, “It is impossible to determine precisely what the Synod of 1971 intended by its decision relative to the dance” and “There are inherent difficulties involved in applying the Film Arts’ decisions of 1966 to the dance.”
It is clear from the Acts of 1978 that the appointed committee is not charged to deal directly with the board’s problem. It will “study the matter of the dance in the light of the Scriptures.”
In view of the fact that secular dancing is, to say the least, a morally questionable entertainment, in my opinion, our Church cannot and may not approve of its members indulging therein.
This is a second article by Henry Baker, retired minister of the CRC in Grand Rapids.