By Angela Yarber
Liker many ordained Baptist pastors, I recently guided my congregation during the seasons of Lent and Easter with spiritual disciplines, preaching, worship and baptism. This week I shout hallelujah with my body. I dance.
Angela Yarber
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April 29 is celebrated as International Day of Dance. “Baptists don’t dance,” the old stereotype goes, but as also a professional dancer I want to debunk this notion.
Dance has been a vital part of our history. We read of dance as a form of worship more than 27 times in the Hebrew Bible. Miriam, David, Jephthah’s daughter, the Shulamite, Judith and Salome all danced in the grip of God’s joy.
There are 10 Hebrew verb forms for dance found in the Bible. The words we translate “worship” or “praise” literally mean to “prostrate, bow down” [shachah], “confess with outstretched hands” [yadah], or “kneel” [barak].
In the New Testament, dance is continually prevalent. The Greek word we translate as “exceedingly glad or joyful” [agaillo] literally means “with much leaping.” Dance and joy, therefore, were synonymous. Worshippers were literally jumping for joy.
As the church continued to grow, church “fathers” advocated dance as means for worship:
Clement of Alexandria: “This is the mountain beloved of God … and there revel on it … daughters of God, the fair lambs, who celebrate the holy rites of the Word, raising a sober choral dance.”
Ambrose requested that persons about to be baptized approach the font dancing.
Eusebius of Caesarea wrote, “With dances and hymns, in city and country, they glorified first of all God the universal King.”
Jerome said: “In the Church the joy of the spirit finds expression in bodily gestures and her children shall say with David as they dance the solemn step: ‘I will dance and play before the face of the Lord.’”
Basil the Great: “We remember those who now, together with the Angels, dance the dance of the Angels around God, just as in the heavenly dance…. Could there be anything more blessed than to imitate on earth the ring-dance of the angels and at dawn to raise our voices in prayer and by hymns and song glorify the rising Creator.”
Gregory of Nyssa: “Once there was a time when the whole of rational creation formed a single dancing chorus looking upwards to the one leader of this dance. And the harmony of that motion which was imparted to them by reason of his law found its way into their dancing.”
Augustine: “He who dances obeys…. In our case dancing means changing the manner of our life … when God called the tune, he hearkened and began to dance.”
In the medieval period, Archbishop Isidore of Seville composed choreography for the Mozarabic Rite that is still celebrated three times per year in the Cathedral of Seville. Cloistered nuns danced on the Feasts of Holy Innocents, and priests danced on the Feast of St. Nicholas.
Dante described dancing as the “occupation of those in paradise” and labyrinth dances flourished in church courtyards.
During the Renaissance, Martin Luther admonished dance in his carol “On Heaven High” and penned a letter to his son stating that heaven is a place of “happy people dancing.”
In the Post Reformation, Jesuits were responsible for establishing the five ballet positions still utilized as formative ballet technique. There are countless other examples of dance that fill the history of Christian worship.
Some Baptist groups flourish because of their work in dance. Within the past few years I have served as a dancer in residence for the Alliance of Baptists and Baptist Peace Fellowship. I have led a number of conferences and taught courses on dance and world religions, dance in Christian worship, and women’s dances in Scripture at Baptist churches and seminaries. And for more than four years I served as associate pastor of arts and education at a Baptist church in California, where we danced in worship at least once a month.
Dancers of all traditions — even Baptists — pay homage to what is sacred by offering to God our bodies as living sacrifices; for this is our spiritual act of worship (Romans 12:1). So, as you enter this Easter season with ‘Hallelujahs!’ on your lips, I invite you to remember your body.
Remember your history as a dancing people. I invite you to dance.