Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Clivedurdle · 09-09-2007, 03:37 PM

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...VG2RN9ILE1.DTL

Dancing in the Streets - Amazon link (or via: amazon.co.uk)

I am really enjoying this - Sergeant Pepper's may be historically very significant!

Ehrenreich comments on interesting links between Jesus and Dionysus that I had not realised - water into wine for example, and also that dancing was always a very important part of Christian ritual. Paul asking women to cover their hair and men to keep hair short was about a need to get xianity accepted by Romans with a bit of decorum in the dancing, in comparison to the Greek and Eastern ways.

She comments on Macabees that Zeus and Dionysus were the same.

There are fascinating comments about glossolalia.

Has anyone studied the role of dance in church history, and why there is a Dionysian grave in a xian churchyard?

Clivedurdle · 09-10-2007, 09:10 AM

Quote:

Drugs, elementary sexuality and herd-intoxication—these are the three most popular avenues of downward self-transcendence. There are many others, not so well trodden as these great descending highways, but leading no less surely to the same infra-personal goal. Consider, for example, the way of rhythmic movement. In primitive religions prolonged rhythmic movement is very commonly resorted to for the purpose of inducing a state of infra-personal and subhuman ecstasy. The same technique for achieving the same end has been used by many civilized peoples—by the Greeks, for example, by the Hindus, by many of the orders of Dervishes in the Islamic world, by such Christian sects as the Shakers and the Holy Rollers. In all these cases rhythmic movement, long-drawn and repetitive, is a form of ritual deliberately practiced for the sake of the downward self-transcendence resulting from it. History also records many sporadic outbreaks of involuntary and uncontrollable jigging, swaying and head-wagging. These epidemics of what in one region is called Tarantism, in another St. Vitus's dance, have generally occurred in times of trouble following wars, pestilences and famines, and are most common where malaria is endemic. The unwitting purpose of the men and women who succumb to these collective manias is the same as that pursued by the sectaries who use the dance as a religious rite—namely, to escape from insulated selfhood into a state in which there are no responsibilities, no guilt-laden past or haunting future, but only the present, blissful consciousness of being someone else.
Intimately associated with the ecstasy-producing rite of rhythmic movement is the ecstasy-producing rite of rhythmic sound. Music is as vast as human nature and has something to say to men and women on every level of their being, from the self-regardingly sentimental to the abstractly intellectual, from the merely visceral to the spiritual. In one of its innumerable forms music is a powerful drug, partly stimulant and partly narcotic, but wholly alterative. No man, however highly civilized, can listen for very long to African drumming, or Indian chanting, or Welsh hymn-singing, and retain intact his critical and self-conscious personality. It would be interesting to take a group of the most eminent philosophers from the best universities, shut them up in a hot room with Moroccan dervishes or Haitian voodooists, and measure, with a stop watch, the strength of their psychological resistance to the effects of rhythmic sound. Would the Logical Positivists be able to hold out longer than the Subjective Idealists; Would the Marxists prove tougher than the Thomists or the Vedantists? What a fascinating, what a fruitful field for experiment! Meanwhile, all we can safely predict is that, if exposed long enough to the tom-toms and the singing, every one of our philosophers would end by capering and howling with the savages.

http://www.psychedelic-library.org/loudun.htm

Aldous Huxley on Self-Transcedence
The Epilog of The Devils of Loudun
©1952 by Aldous Huxley, published 1953 by Harper and Brothers, New York

Ehrenreich notes it was Luther who introduced hymn singing. Is that correct?

What is the history of dance in xianity?

Clivedurdle · 09-10-2007, 01:17 PM

Were the labyrinths in churches used for dancing?

Toto · 09-10-2007, 02:11 PM

There are historical records of Christians singing hymns dating to the earliest mention of Christians.

The (heretical)

Acts_of_John "contains the episode at the Last Supper of the Round Dance of the Cross initiated by Jesus, saying, "Before I am delivered to them, let us sing a hymn to the Father and so go to meet what lies before us". Directed to form a circle around him holding hands and dancing, the apostles cry "Amen" to the hymn of Jesus."

As regards the history of dance in general, it is very difficult to be sure of what went on before the advent of video cameras. Dance was probably a part of life, and may have happened without anyone thinking it unusual enough to mention. The church fathers seem to have disapproved of dance, but there are records of people dancing all through Christian history, at least until the Anabaptists persuaded European peasants that Dance was Evil.

Christianity Today answers a question regarding Christian dance here

Quote:

As far as I can tell from my research, dance was not part of worship in the early church. Jewish culture featured dancing at weddings and the Feast of Tabernacles, and of course there are numerous references to David dancing in the Old Testament, but such dancing was spontaneous and celebratory, not liturgical. As a result, early Christians from Jewish backgrounds probably lacked a tradition of dance during formal worship. ...

. . .

The church fathers paint a generally bleak view of dancing but do not wholly preclude sacred dance. Clement of Alexandria, writing circa 195, interpreted Old Testament Scriptures in such a way as to excise reference to literal dancing: " 'Praise with the timbrel and the dance.' This refers to the church meditating on the resurrection of the dead in the resounding skin." Commodius, writing around 240, associated dancing with worldliness: "You are rejecting the law when you wish to please the world. You dance in your houses. Instead of psalms, you sing love songs." Cyprian, though, writing about a decade later, makes some distinction between godly and ungodly dance: "The fact that David led the dances in the presence of God is no sanction for faithful Christians to occupy seats in the public theater. For David did not twist his limbs about in obscene movements. He did not depict in his dancing the story of Grecian lust."

(I am a bit suspicious of the "spontaneous and celebratory" versus "liturgial" distinction.)

And from here:

Quote:

By the end of the early church period, the fathers recognized a threefold purpose of marriage—procreation, sanctification, and chastity (that is, fidelity to one partner, not abstinence). They treated marriage with utmost seriousness. Chrysostom even upbraided his fellow Christians for incorporating supposedly pagan marriage rituals like dancing into the ceremonies. "Is the wedding then a theater?" Chrysostom preached. "It is a sacrament, a mystery, and a model of the Church of Christ, and still you invite dissolute women to it! — But why is there any need of dancing at all? They dance at pagan ceremonies; but at ours, silence and decorum should prevail, respect and modesty. Here, a great mystery is accomplished; away with the dissolute women, away with the profane!"

The Catholic Encyclopedia has very little about Christian dances.

Clivedurdle · 09-10-2007, 03:41 PM

http://www.dfcuk.demon.co.uk/dfc/old/dfcfull.htm

Quote:

Why do we do it?

Because we feel we are called by God to show to the Church that dance, mime and movement does not have to be elitist.

Because we are called to worship God with our bodies as well as spirits and minds.

Because we love God and want to express that love through a medium which uses the whole of us.

Because we enjoy seeing people's faces when they realise how easy dance, mime & movement are.

Because we enjoy it!

(Have they realised the similarity of their web address to...!)

Clivedurdle · 09-10-2007, 03:53 PM

http://www.drbarboza.com/dictionary.htm

Quote:

DICTIONARY OF INDIAN CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY : DANCE

Dr. Francis Barboza svd.

http://orgs.sa.ucsb.edu/actsone8/Sym_Dance.html

Quote:

ntro: A thorough Biblical study will indicate that the presence or absence of dance in God’s people is of tremendous spiritual significance! In this class, first we will study why dance is so important to God, to the church, and to the devil.
Summary: A dancing church says…
To God— “You have restored us, cleansed us, and blessed us.” “We are Your Bride.”
To Each Other— “Here is the vision, have faith.” “This is who our God is!”
To Satan— “Your time is short.” “We shall reach the world with the gospel.”
To the World— “A new move in God is coming—get ready!”

Part II
Intro: The Biblical significance of dance is better understood by thoroughly examining the diversity and frequency with which scripture uses terms for dance. Hastings Dictionary of the Bible defines dance as “an expression of the feelings by movements of the body, more or less controlled by a sense of rhythm.”
Summary: The range of expressive movement which the Bible describes includes leaping, jumping, running, to hop, skip, whirl, turn, twist, spiral, spin, to writhe or contract, to gallop, prance, stamp feet, to tremble, to circle around, to laugh and rejoice, to stretch, be limber, to throw up the hands, to clap, bow down, fall down prostrate, arise and stand up.

Quote:

A. Dance adds the important visual aspect to worship.
1) God made the human body with both eyes and ears, and the “Body of Christ” also needs to see and hear, to be seen and heard.
2) When we can visualize the nature and character of God we can better understand and better worship Him.
B. Dance is the fulfillment of prophecy.
“Again I will build you, and you shall be rebuilt, O virgin of Israel! You shall again be adorned with your tambourines, and shall go forth in the dances of those who rejoice” Jer 31:4 (“virgin of Israel” = the Bride, the end time church).
C. Dance is a sign of blessing and restoration in the church.
1) 2 Sam 6:13-14—dance is associated with the restoration of the glory of God to his people.
2)“The joy of our heart has ceased; our dance has turned into mourning”
Lam 5:15—the absence of dance is a sign of judgment.
D. Dance resists the enemy (Jam 4:7).
1) 3 main occasions for dance in Israel’s day—harvest, marriage, victories in battle—all 3 of which spiritually point to the end times. When we dance it is a sign to Satan that his time is short!
2) The authority of the feet—Gen 3:5, Rom 16:20, Ps 8:6, etc.—Satan is particularly nervous about what your feet are doing!

Groups of people coming together, singing, dancing, eating, sharing. You don't need a real leader to do that - a mythical lord of the dance is just fine.

Not very Roman though - which might explain why it was frowned upon. And the beginnings of real reasons for the success of this religion. Bringing together body mind and spirit in a new idea - the body of Christ as its people.

09-09-2007, 03:37 PM	#1
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	Dancing in the Streets: A history of collective joy http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...VG2RN9ILE1.DTL Dancing in the Streets - Amazon link (or via: amazon.co.uk) I am really enjoying this - Sergeant Pepper's may be historically very significant! Ehrenreich comments on interesting links between Jesus and Dionysus that I had not realised - water into wine for example, and also that dancing was always a very important part of Christian ritual. Paul asking women to cover their hair and men to keep hair short was about a need to get xianity accepted by Romans with a bit of decorum in the dancing, in comparison to the Greek and Eastern ways. She comments on Macabees that Zeus and Dionysus were the same. There are fascinating comments about glossolalia. Has anyone studied the role of dance in church history, and why there is a Dionysian grave in a xian churchyard?

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09-10-2007, 01:17 PM	#3
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	Were the labyrinths in churches used for dancing?

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