DANCING RESPONSIBLE

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 15, 8 April 1927, Page 5

DANCING RESPONSIBLE

HARD TO BE A CHRISTIAN “NOT VICIOUS OR IMMORAL” Indulgence in dancing, says the president of the Methodist Conference, Dr. H. Ranston, makes it harder to be a Christian. Experience has fully proved, according to Dr. Ranston, that this form of amusement nearly always tends to blunt the spiirtual experience. Therefor the benefit of Methodists only. The resolution passed by the recent conference, he hastens to add, however, in which Methodist people were warned of the great moral and spiritual evils arising out of dancing, was for the beenfit of Methodists only. "Other churches can define their own attitude for themselves,” declares Dr. Ranston, who denies that Methodists are "kill-joys” or opposed to sports and amusements. A merely negative attitude on this question was impossible. A church, which like his own was against dancing should be prepared to encourage suitable amusements for its young people, "instead of the rowdy, ungraceful games so often played,” he adds. Mirth and gaiety were not treated with suspicion. Neither do the Methodists regard dancing as intrinsically sinful in itself and those who dance as vicious or immoral. To put all who dance in the class of sinners was certainly not the intention of the conference.