Oh, the spirit of worldly compromise has reached Wheaton College in Illinois, that former bastion of Evangelical wholesomeness: they’re not only allowing students to dance off-campus, they’re letting them perform those bodily gyrations in the gymnasium of the college itself.
They probably got the idea from the late but still active radio preacher J. Vernon McGee, whose words expose him, I suppose, as a dreadful liberal:
There are lots of other preferences that are often stated as laws …
Some have said that those who dance are catering to lust. Now, I would agree that I’ve seen some dancing that seemed to be doing just that … but we must not say that all dancing is that way. We must not forget that many people danced for joy before the Lord.
First you let your faculty dance with their spouses at weddings off-campus, and then it’s Katie bar the door.
Wow, those heathens!
You know that Southern Baptists don’t believe in sex, because it might lead to dancing.
There’s a reason Wheaton didn’t make the short list.. Or, well, even the long list.
I just wish my Alma Mater was holding its first dance since the Civil War instead of fighting over Chief Illiniwek, the most respected collegiate symbol anywhere…
What Wheaton College needs to realize is that holiness is not something that is to to be beaten into someone with rigid manmade extrapolations on Scripture but by renewing the mind with the Word of God and by the power of the Holy Spirit within us to help us live holy lives.
Some of our brethren are too weak in the faith to discern between worldly “dirty dancing” a la Christina Aguilera and say a fun swing dance singles mixer. We need to respect our brothers and sisters still weak in the faith to the point they can’t discern the difference between having a little fun and glorifying and indulging in the things of the flesh.
That being said, this doesn’t excuse those in positions of spiritual authority from issuing hyper-legalistic dictates on all manner of behavior (moviegoing, dancing, etc) instead of training and instructing those in their charge to understand in context our Lord’s expectations of our behavior. The goal of a Christian college should be to help instill discernment and godly judgment, not mindless conformity to arbitrarily imposed standards with no firm basis in Scripture.