THE CHURCH AND THE QUESTION OF DANCING.

Poverty Bay Standard, 4 September 1875, Page 2

THE CHURCH AND THE QUESTION OF DANCING.

(From the New North- West) 1. No church has a right to attempt to bind the conscience of an individual by any rule not clearly expressed in the Scriptures. What the Bible teaches is obligatory whether a church enjoins it or not. A church can not arbitrarily compel the belief of any thing not in the revealed will of God.

2. As a human society any church may establish for the government of its members any rule it may choose. Every society does this. The Masons, the Odd Fellows, and, indeed, every organisation has its own rules. If any one does not like them, he can stay out of the society. So a church may establish its rules. If any one does not like them, he can and ought to let them alone. No one will compel him to join a church if he does not like it.

3. No church has any right to meddle with the amusements of those who do not profess to be Christians. If the church is attacked it has a right to defend itself. The minister or the church that attempts to hinder the amusements of the world is guilty of a breach of good manners. Ministers and churches should attend to their own business. 4. The same rule will apply to the world. It should let the churches manage their own affairs. If they do right, well: if they make mistakes, it is not the business qf the world to set them right.

5. On the ground of expediency- a Christian church has a right to forbid its members to dance. This rule is given in the Bth and 10th chapters of Ist Corinthians. It was not wrong in a Christian to eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols, providing he did not eat it as an act of worship in honor of the idol. But if by his eating of the meat some other Christian might be led to worship in some manner an idol, or, if by his eating the meat some heathen might concluderthat a Christian was conforming to the practices of the heathen, then as a matter of conscience, not of command, the Christian should not eat of it. On the same ground may the church, as an ordinance of God, forbid dancing. Dancing is not wrong in itself, but to the Christian, on the ground of expediency, not of command, it becomes a matter of conscience. The world will think that Christians are conforming to the practices of the world. 6. When a church finds it is about to be injured by the conduct of any of its members, it has the right of all human societies to defend itself by such laws as it may see proper to enact. Examples need not be given to prove that a church loses influence in a community if its members make a practice of attending fiances. Every Christian * knows that spirituality is not generally found among those Christians who habitually dance. 7. The church that forbids its members to dance, by so doing, shows a respect for the opinion of the world. When a Christian unites with a church, the world expects him to make some sacrifices. By common consent dancing has been selected as the amusement Christians should give up. When a professing Christian dances the world claims him. The world does not expect an exemplary Christian to dance.

8. The world must judge of Christianity by the lives of Christians. If Christians jive holy, godly, and consistent lives, the world vatnris Christianity at a high price. If it see them with their hearts set on things forbidden or doubtful, it judges that religion is not a power in die heart as strong as Christians say it is. 9. The rule, after all, that governs a Christian in this matter is not found in the laws bf the church but in his conscience. If a real Christian finds he dishonors God by dancing he will not dance “ while the world stands.” Every Christian, JMwt conscientiously consider the circunmances under which he is placed by each new temptation. No church can lay down rules to suit every case. That one is the most useful church in the community which has fewest laws, for as a rule the members of that church are more scrupulous as to their conduct before God. The rules of church have little terrors to them. They fear God, not the church. They love God and endeavor to honor him, and they will do nothing that will even have the appearance of evil, because they would not have the cause of God “ evilly spoken of.”