One of my best friends from church and I leaned against my dad’s ’62 Regal, bored out of our minds.

"What do you want to do," I said.
"I don’t know…what do you want to do?"
"I don’t know…can’t dance."

It wasn’t that we couldn’t dance, as if we lacked ability. But we couldn’t dance because we were taught that it was morally wrong to dance. So, to go to a dance would have directly violated our parents’ will. They said, "Christians don’t go to dances," period.

That was pretty much it. No explanations. No exceptions. No rationale. Just, "we don’t dance." There was uniformity among virtually all the members of the church in those days, at least in the places I lived. No Christians allowed their kids to go to dances. So, if you were an oddball, at least you were only one of several oddballs.

You should know that in the early 60s, dancing was all the rage, especially in a small town. I lived in Coalinga then, before there was a Harris Ranch or an I-5. Coalinga ("coaling station A") was 70 miles west of Fresno but might as well have been a million miles from anywhere else. On a Friday night, you hardly had an array of choices of entertainment (TV had but three channels and one of those always had "snowy" reception). You could go to a movie – there was one screen in town – or you could drive up and down Main Street. Driving up and down Main Street would take about a minute and a half each way, if there was traffic. There wasn’t even a traffic light on Main Street.

So, there wasn’t a lot for a high school Sophomore to do on a weekend. There was only one organized program in town during the school year, and that was the weekly dance in the school gym. Everybody went to the dance. Everybody, ‘cept us kids from the church of Christ.

When asked why we didn’t go it usually worked to say "it’s against our religion." It worked because back then, people respected things that were "against your religion." It didn’t make you popular, but they seemed to respect your conviction. I’m ashamed to say that more than once, when a pretty girl said "I didn’t see you at the dance," my response was a less than honest, but "technically accurate," "I didn’t see you, either."

Really, neither of those answers was any good. The latter, because it is dishonest, the former because it’s not a matter of "religion." Unfortunately, the precept was laid down by the adults in the church, but the principle was not discussed. I think I know why today. In the 50s and early 60s the kinds of things we would have had to discuss (sex, lust, and similar concepts) were just not talked about much. I remember my grandmother, about that time, getting upset because an older female cousin kept saying the word "pregnant" while we were visiting at the kitchen table. Pretty soon, grandma had heard all she wanted to hear and, in one of the few times I ever saw her angry, she said "would you please stop talking about that!" Times were very different from today.

Had the principles been discussed with us we would have understood why we weren’t permitted to go to dances. It wouldn’t necessarily have made it any easier in school, but it might have helped. But I knew something wasn’t quite right with dancing anyway. At least the "American Bandstand" kind of dancing. At the tender age of 11, I moved to Grass Valley. One day, our teacher marched our whole sixth grade class into the gymnasium for an afternoon of dancing. I’m not talking about square, tap or soft-shoe, but slooowww dancing with slooowww, soft, romantic music. They even turned down the lights. I was aghast, and, mostly, horrified at the possibility that a girl would ask me to dance. So, I sat in the darkened gym, and literally hid behind the wrestling mats that were hanging on the wall. I was more than a wall-flower, I was a shrinking Posey.

I did see enough to know that sixth grade boys and girls have no business clinging tightly to each other and swaying back and forth in a darkened room – with or without music. I told my parents about it. I don’t know what they did, but I never was required to attend another of those sordid affairs.

But here’s the deal – if it’s wrong for sixth graders to do it, when does it become "right"? 9th grade? 12th grade? In college? When is it right for unmarried members of the opposite sex to get as close to each other as possible and move around a room together? Or when is it right for a person to stand on a floor where others can see them and move their body in such a way that can only be described as "sensual" or "sensuous" or "enticing" or "tempting" or "alluring." Is it ever right for a man or woman, boy or girl to engage in something on a dance floor that they would not think of doing on a street corner?

Notice that I’m asking what is right about it, not "what is wrong with it." Hear me well: I believe every person who persists in making moral and religious decisions by means of asking "what is wrong with it" has very little hope of getting into heaven. It is the most immature question a Christian can ask. Phil. 4:8 says that we are to dwell on things that are right. When we conduct our lives and make decisions by asking "what is right with it," it is hard to go wrong. At judgment, there will be many who say, "we did all these works in your Lord – what was wrong with it?" And the Lord will say, "depart from Me you workers of iniquity; I never knew you" (Mt. 7:21-23). Why? Because they spent their "religious" life pursuing their own self-interest, asking the wrong questions all along the way.

God has not spelled out every possible wrong thing that we might engage in. But He has told us what is right, in precept and principle. A person who cannot understand how principles are to be applied is not competent enough to be a Christian. Some don’t see these principles because they don’t want to. They can’t find the truth on a subject for the same reason a serial killer cannot find a policemen – they have no desire to. To find the truth would require a decision to end the practice and those people have no desire to end the practice. So, they come up with lots of explanations for Bible texts that otherwise seem to condemn the favored activity. I’m very afraid that the words "I never knew you" are in the future of those people, because their hearts are not right

Some see no danger in going to dances. One of my best friends when I was a Junior and Senior used to argue with me about it. His favorite line was, "it’s good exercise." I didn’t have the knowledge then to answer, "…bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come." (1 Tim 4:8 NKJV). But I did think that was a pretty lame argument from a straight A student, and wondered why he couldn’t come up with something more profound.

Let’s cut to the chase here: dancing that involves the close embrace and movement of unmarried males and females, or bodily gyrations that are designed to provide sensual entertainment or visual stimulus cannot be right under any biblical principle that I am aware of. A dance floor cannot sanctify these acts: it would not be tolerated in any other forum. A man who saw another man in a such an embrace with his wife off the dance floor would be enraged, and rightly so.

I contend that dancing is improper for Christians because it can easily cause lust, whether or not the person intends that to happen. Others dance for the express purpose of lust. In a meant-to-be humorous Reader’s Digest article, a wife had signed her and her husband up for dance lessons. As he groaned and complained about this "death sentence," his wife chided him: "You used to practically beg me to dance with you when we were first dating. If you hate dancing so much, how do you explain that?" He replied, "Lust. It was the quickest way to get my arms around you in a fashion acceptable to the community."

Now how does that stack up against passages like Gal. 5:19-21? "Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." Dances potentially promote or involve at least four of the sins mentioned here: immorality, impurity, sensuality and carousing. People who engage in these things will not go to heaven. Would a person really give up his soul for a few nights on the dance floor?

Historically, what is going on here is creeping desensitization to the lust of the flesh. John says in I Jn. 2:16, "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world." Lust of the flesh is simply lust (illicit desire) that is produced from fleshly pursuits. Paul called it "sensuality" in Gal. 5:19 – allowing the senses to be enticed beyond what is right. Remember that self-control is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:23) and "Like a city whose walls are broken down is the man who lacks self control" (Pr. 25:28) – that person is unprotected, vulnerable.

Dancing, as we see it practiced today, is relatively new. The Bible discusses some dancing that appealed to the flesh and is clearly condemned (see Matthew 14:6-7; a sensual dance cost John the Baptist his head). But couples dancing is of recent vintage. In fact, Oxford historian Peter Buckman outlines the development of modern dancing in Western culture in a book entitled "Let’s Dance," published in 1978.

He records that couples dancing, where two people of the opposite actually touch while dancing did not first occur until the fifteenth century and even then it was limited to touching of the hands. Any kind of "mixt dancing" was frowned upon by most religious folks, at least, up until the seventeenth century. Dancing was prohibited by the Continental Congress on October 12, 1778 saying it produced "idleness, dissipation and a general depravity of principles and manners." Believe it or not, the Federal Government, which today funds the killing of babies and lewd acts through the National Endowment for the Arts, once made dancing against the law! Creeping lust.

The waltz was the dance that introduced close body contact between men and women for the first time, but not without strong criticism. In parts of Germany and Switzerland, it was banned altogether, according to Buckman. The London Times, in 1816, called the waltz "indecent," involving the "voluptuous intertwining of the limbs and close compressure of the bodies… far removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females…" The Times went on to call it an "obscene display" suitable for prostitutes and adulteresses and strongly warned parents against exposing their daughters to it. They were commenting on the waltz! Today, the waltz is considered an extremely mild form of dancing. Creeping lust?

The polka came next, and there was no stopping dancing now; the water was well over the dam. Why? Buckman says that dancing became so popular, despite vociferous objections from many quarters, because "the god of profit was replacing that of the Bible as the chief totem (emblem)." Today, ballroom dancing – dances like the waltz and the polka – are "mild" and consciences are seared toward them. Still, Cole Porter could say in the 40s, "what is dancing, but making love to music?" And even venerable old Arthur Murray, grand instructor of the waltz and polka, said, "the only difference between wrestling and dancing is that in wrestling some holds are barred." (Arthur was such a card). Is this right for Christians? There are some who consistently say "yes, this is proper recreation for Christians. There is no harm in it." It appears that it proves that "the sons of this world are for their own generation wiser than the sons of light" (Lk. 16:8).

I know I’m in a shrinking minority even among brethren. But is it possible we have become so desensitized to the lust of the flesh that we are permitting things that violate the passages that speak of lust, lasciviousness, sensuality and immorality? It is so important because God has told us that we cannot inherit His kingdom if we persist in these things.