Dancing for the Lord?

Is it in the way I want and I feel  that I should worship God?

A lot has been said and written on the subject of public worship in relation to regulative principles of worship. Here, I will not go in to that but will simply strive to apply these principles that greatly affect our true worship of God, especially with regard to music and dances that prevail in Africa today.

Moses warns Israel: ‘When the LORD your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?-that I also may do the same.’ You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.’ (Deuteronomy 12: 29-31, ESV).

Before I delve in to this, let us take note of the following five important facts on worship for now:

1.      God wants us to worship Him at his own terms and conditions whether revealed or implied by the Scriptures.

2.      Man cannot and should not set these standards for God. He is Holy and we are not.

3.      Worship offered by one’s whole heart and feelings to God can still be rejected by God. Our feelings therefore  can be misleading gauge of whether our worship pleased God or not.

4.      What pleases man in our worship does not necessarily please God. You may end up entertaining men and not God.

5.      Music for God is NEVER for peddling.

A common scene in many cities today is like this: Take a walk down the street, probably on a market day. It is busy!  Every trader is blaring on his PA system calling customers to buy. A company at the corner is promoting its product with a deafeningly loud music on a mobile platform. Look keenly on that platform. What do you see but scantily dressed dancing girls wriggling their waists to the beat of the music. The following day, you take a walk down another street in town. Another loud music with dancing girls wriggling their waists invitingly but the irony is that they are alerting people about the deadly disease HIV Aids and how to avoid it!  Farther down, is another music with dancing girls again wriggling their waists, but now, this one has been baptised a ‘holy dance unto the Lord.’ ‘Ndobolo ya yesu.’  You enquire with confused face what is happening. Why would ‘Christians’ dance so invitingly like the heathens?  The pastor you ask has a ready answer as usual:

1.      ‘Oh you know, music and dancing was for us Christians but the devil stole it from heaven so we are reclaiming it.’ What this pastor means to tell you in words he himself may not understand is unimaginable thing. That before Satan was cast out of heaven, angels used to dance to the God wriggling their waists until he stole that dance style which now is being reclaimed to the Kingdom of God!  Oh! No, that’s not heaven.

2.      ‘Oh you know man, even king David danced to the Lord on the day the Ark was brought in to Jerusalem and his wife despised him for that, moreover, dance does not have a formula, it can take any style and form.’

3.       ‘Oh you know, this is the way we will win the world to Christ when we accept their ways.’

Objection, to these notions:

1.      As already said above, one cannot imagine that the dance in heaven at pre-satanic fall was this ‘waisty.’ Neither can one say that this is what John saw in heaven when he had a vision of the angels singing in heaven. One of the songs given in Revelation 4:8 goes like this: ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!’ (Sang day and night). How can such a song be accompanied with the so called dance that Satan ‘stole’? In short waist ‘gospel’ dance is an invention of Satan himself after the fall. Remember he is our adversary, works against the very gospel we are called to uphold.

2.      Davidic dance? I am convinced that there are books in the Scripture that are meant to clearly teach Christian doctrines to be followed and to be upheld to the point of shedding blood. These are called didactic passages (Epistles and pastoral letters are full of this). Much of Old Testament passages are majorly narratives. Building a doctrine from narratives can mislead one just as it is in 2 Samuel 6:16. It is important here that didactic (doctrinal) passages be separated from narratives.

Secondly, it is true that dances can take any form. The way one tribe dances can be very different from the way another tribe or culture does. I am aware that waist dance in Africa has its origin from tribal dances in many countries falling within the central/middle part of Africa- Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) included. I am an African living in one of these countries and I know that some of our dance styles are attributed to gods. The kind of dance style varies according to the god and the need at hand. This is what Moses warns against in Deut above that ‘do not even enquire: How did these nations serve their gods?-that I also may do the same.’ You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods.’  I am here reminded of Moses himself when he came down from the mountain and found the Israelites singing and dancing to the calf that they had made (a god of Egypt). The Bible records:  ‘And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot...’(Exodus 32: 19). The dance was not Israel dance but Egyptian dance to the idol calf-which shocked Moses and made him burn with anger. He quickly picked their dance style as strange and unusual.

3.      I find argument number three above in defence of waist dance disturbing and having no biblical defence. Such careless attitude towards the gospel of Christ is what has ended up filling churches with unconverted souls perpetuating the world in the church. Even Apostle Paul’s principle of being a Jew to the Jews and a Gentile to the Gentiles to win them to Christ does not work this way. We do not win the world by being like the world but by being separate yet in the world. The gospel of Jesus is a hard thing. There are those who will reject it because it comes against their ungodly ways and there are those that the gospel will win and change their ungodly ways. Counting the cost is a must if one wants to get saved.

The truth of the matter:

I see all the worldly approach to propagating the gospel of Jesus Christ as a man-made attempt to fill the pews of our churches through all possible means. It is a salesman mentality: ‘What do they want out there? Give them and you will make money.’  Let us serve God with reverence and fear and in holiness.  Avoid focussing on man and what pleases man but focus on God and what pleases God. Think and think and think biblically before you introduce any practise into the church of Christ which He bought by his own blood. It is not our church where we can be free to decide what to do in it including weird dances that entertain and feed sinfulness of men. We kill sin by not feeding it. We do not win sinners to Christ by feeding them with sin.

By Pastor Sam Oluoch.