Michael
From Canterbury Baptist Church
There's loads of places in scripture about dancing for joy, God turning our sorrow into dancing and so forth, and that's great. But I hear a lot of songs talking about dancing with Jesus, dancing WITH God, etc. - is this mentioned anywhere in scripture? Or is it just a reference to us being in sync with God? For better or for worse I'm always sceptical about songs I'm not really sure of in this regard and others, and it always feels a bit weird singing such things personally - they tend to fall under the banner of "Jesus is my boyfriend" type songs in my book!
I also feel weird singing of dancing with Jesus.
I would agree with Joe, if it's not bad theology then its not worth getting too worked up over. Personally, I feel being biblical (i.e. able to support a worship song biblically) can make the difference between a good song, and a great song.
I'll be prepared to bet that some of our African brothers and sisters will have far less difficulty with this concept than we will. British Evangelical culture doesn't really do dancing. And we (perhaps?) automatically assume that dancing = us alone with Jesus on the dancefloor. Which *is* pretty wierd.
But, if there's a wedding feast in heaven it will probably have dancing. Now ceilidh dancing with Jesus - that I can imagine.
Saturday Night Fever et. al. is certainly what comes to mind for me... good point Paul.
"I was looking at it from the other side and thinking... if it's not subversive / bad theology, and scripture doesn't speak against it, why not judge it by the heart intention behind it and its fruit?"
I just think this can potentially be a dangerous road to go down, because you could end up getting to the point where you dismiss everything as ok as long as the bible doesn't explicitly say it shouldn't be there. Admittedly that's an extreme case, I'm just a bit weary of it for that reason!
"And we (perhaps?) automatically assume that dancing = us alone with Jesus on the dancefloor. Which *is* pretty wierd."
Yeah, I think the style of the Jesus Culture song I was thinking of in particular does seem to imply that - but perhaps it's just me!
Michael
Don't disagree - I think I was simply arguing against the opposite extreme of your point, which was to say that unless one can give chapter and verse to support lyrics, they shouldn't be allowed.
It removes the potential for some creativity...
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Hey...
I was chewing over this the other day after a conversation with a friend.
Quite a lot of the time people tend to ask the question, "Where is x, y or z in the bible?" And if it's not there, we start getting pretty worried about it.
I was looking at it from the other side and thinking... if it's not subversive / bad theology, and scripture doesn't speak against it, why not judge it by the heart intention behind it and its fruit?
Appreciate it's not really an answer to your question, but to find that answer, I think you'd have to speak to the person who wrote it. Else, at the risk of being too post-modern, the answer is, "whatever it means to you." And if it's too 'Jesus if my boyfriend', then the song as a whole may not be helpful for ya...
Anyway, my £0.02.
Joe
"One, two, three, here we go..."
www.myspace.com/josephhargreaves