My comments on dancing in my editorial "'Celebration' Is a Naughty Word" (December 1990) stirred many readers' emotions.
One writer said, "I used to be very good at dancing, but I'm not sure which steps will accompany the celebration order of service. Mr. Newman didn't elaborate in his article. I learned how to dance in high school with little difficulty, so it should be duck soup. How ever, I am worried about my wife, who was raised an Adventist and has never been able to 'cut a rug,' if you know what I mean."
Some correspondents accused me of promoting dancing during the worship service and others of exegeting poorly. Some acknowledged that the Old Testament did put in a good word for dancing but said that since the New Testament never approved of it, we must disapprove of it. One wrote that on a recent trip to Israel he had visited a synagogue on Sabbath. He concluded that since he found no dancing there, people did not dance as a part of worship in Bible times.
Let me put the record straight. I am not advocating dancing as a part of our worship services—though we forget that there are many forms of dancing, not all of which are necessarily lascivious.
In my editorial I said that the Bible mentioned dancing as a part of worshiping God. Since many Adventists know only one way to worship God—Sabbath morning church services—it apparently is hard for us to imagine the diverse ways in which people worshiped God in ancient times.
Worship is simply giving to God His worth. It can be expressed through the emotions as well as the intellect. But Adventists, as a whole, tend to be wary of the use of emotion in worship—and not without good reason.
Ellen White opposed the use of musical instruments in worship when they are used to whip up people's emotions. She said that the devil works through our emotions to control us, while God works through our minds, our intellects, to guide us. Satan "will endeavor to excite the emotions, to arouse the passions, to fasten the affections on that which is not for your good; but it is for you to hold every emotion and passion under control, in calm subjection to reason and conscience. Then Satan loses his power to control the mind."1
"We do not want an emotional religion," 2 Ellen White wrote. "It is not your feelings, your emotions, that make you a child of God, but the doing of God's will." 3 "We are not to look into our hearts for a joyful emotion as an evidence of our acceptance with Heaven, but we are to take God's promises and say, 'They are mine.'" 4
She was also concerned about how non-Adventists would react to extremism in worship. She wrote: "In this stage of our history we must be very careful to guard against everything that savors of fanaticism and disorder. We must guard against all peculiar exercises that would be likely to stir up the minds of unbelievers, and lead them to think that as a people we are led by impulse, and delight in noise and confusion accompanied by eccentricities of action." 5
She attended one meeting where "there was much excitement, with noise and confusion. One could not tell what was piped or what was harped. Some appeared to be in vision, and fell to the floor. Others were jumping, dancing, and shouting." 6
Ellen White did not oppose emotion but emotionalism, which is excessive appeal to or dependence on the emotions. She recognized that emotion constitutes an important component of the human being. Her writings remind us that "we must gather about the cross. Christ and Him crucified should be the theme of contemplation, of conversation, and of our most joyful emotion." 7 It is just that "emotions are as changeable as the clouds. You must have something solid for the foundation of your faith. The word of the Lord is a word of infinite power, upon which you may rely." 8 "We are to find the assurance of our acceptance with God in His written promise, not in a happy flight of feeling. Were we to ground our hope upon joyful emotions, there are many of God's true people who would be without assurance." 9
While Ellen White generally reacted negatively to dancing, she does mention some biblical dancing in a positive way: the dancing of Miriam10 and David, 11 for example. Commenting on the Feast of Tabernacles as conducted during Jesus' ministry on earth, she said: "At evening when the lamps were lighted, the court was a scene of great rejoicing. Gray-haired men, the priests of the temple and the rulers of the people, united in the festive dances to the sound of instrumental music and the chants of the Levites." 12
Salvation always comes through an act of the will—routed through the intellect. It should result in our feeling peace and joy (emotions)—but only as a result, never as a cause. We must always found our mode of worship upon the Bible; it should center on acknowledging Jesus as Lord as well as Saviour. Only our need commends us to God, and when we surrender to His will He imputes the righteousness of God to us and also simultaneously transforms us through the new birth experience.
So we should worship God with both our mind and our emotions—praising Him. "I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart" (Ps. 138:1, NIV).
