The Bible teaches that certain dances are sinful.

Thank you for accepting. (As Con broke Rule 8, I will amend it—giving him the last word.) Lewdness is sinful To begin, let us consider the fourth chapter of 1st Peter. It reads, “… [W]e have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles—when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. In regard to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you” (vv. 3–4).[1] People “think it strange” that Christians refuse to take part in such things, so they “speak[] evil of them” (e.g., by calling them “dull,” “out of touch,” “legalists,” etc.) for doing such. “They will give an account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead” (v. 5). The first two sins mentioned here are 1) lewdness and 2) lusts. The New Testament was originally written in Greek, so the words translated “lewdness” and “lust” were aselgeia and epithumia, respectively. The first word, aselgeia, is also translated “lust” in Romans 13:13: “Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy.” According to Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, it refers to “‘wanton’ (acts or) manners, as filthy words, indecent bodily movements, unchaste handling of males and females, etc.”[2] Note that this does not require “going all the way” (having sexual intercourse) but can refer even to an indecent movement of the body or an unchaste handing of someone. Obviously, what this word entails is sinful, based on the verses given, so if I can show the five dances we’re debating over to be included in the definition of lewd (aselgeia), then it will be clear that they are sinful. Determining what is lewd Body appearance To begin determining how to define what is lewd, or lust-inducing, let us read the third chapter of the Book of Genesis. We read that Adam and Eve “were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings” (v. 7). But these “coverings” did not truly cover, and they knew it. Once “they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day … Adam and his wife hid themselves …” (vv. 8–10) because the “coverings” weren’t enough. As a result, God made “tunics of skin” for Adam and Eve (v. 21). Genesis, a book of the Old Testament, was written in Hebrew. The word translated “tunic” referred to “A tunic… generally with sleeves, coming down to the knees, rarely to the ankles.”[3] We read here that this tunic would go from the shoulders to at least the knees. Is it a coincidence that God made their tunics this way? I think not! Research has attempted to establish how objectively the parts of a woman’s body are sexually attractive to a man by using research from different people of different times: “For every century, three body parts - breasts, waist and thighs - are more often referred to as beautiful than other body parts.”[4] The tunic we just previously discussed, going from the shoulders to the knees, basically covered from the breasts down to the thighs, interestingly. From the foregoing, we can conclude that flaunting this region of the body (e.g., through revealing clothing or in this case, through dancing) quite objectively qualifies as lewd. Sensuality We have discussed how “indecent bodily movements” are lewd. This did not discuss in detail, however, the “unchaste handling of males and females.” Sensuality is also a factor that can affect lewdness. Certain areas of the body, known as erogenous zones, are sexually stimulating when pressed. Even the waltz involves embraces of the breasts, etc. that are sexually inappropriate. T. A. Faulkner, former dancing master and proprietor of the Los Angeles Dancing Academy and president of Dancing Masters’ Association of the Pacific Coast, eventually forsook his career upon realizing the “iniquity and the enormity of the hideous business I … had been following for years, which was not only destroying the bodies and souls of the girls and women who were caught in my net, but my own body and soul, and thru my influence, those of thousands of others following my foot steps.”[5] In this book, The Lure of the Dance with Christ at the Ball, he warns dancers and their parents of the dangers of dancing: “After [a young man] has attended his first ball, whirled thru the mazes of the waltz and round dances with [a] sweet, young, beautiful girl, pressed closely to his bosom—her partially nude breasts exposed to his view, and his very heart beats running wild with the ecstasy of the moment, his nerves tingling and rioting with the delicious sensations which such a contact engenders—he has tasted to the full the rarest attraction that the Devil has to offer him. From this time on, alas! his descent in the downward path is very rapid …”[6] This definition fits what the “unchaste handling of males and females” entails and is thus lewd. The five dances Let us now consider the five dances, keeping in mind the foregoing. The Argentine tango This dance involves dancing in close contact, embracing in a manner similar to what we have already discussed. Therefore, it is lewd. Caramelldansen The flaunting done via the flamboyant swinging of the hips, the rabbit ears, the origin involving an adult visual novel—this is not something a Christian should be doing. Belly dancing This dance involves the shaking of the belly and hips in such a way that the “Stigma attached to … the art of [the] Belly Dance may be one of the reasons why the dance appears to have little history documented and appears to have been 'underground' for many years.”[7] The bump The intimate bumping of the hips and “backside” (buttocks) is, in a way, a combination of both “indecent bodily movements” and the “unchaste handling of males and females.” Booty dancing Booty dancing, as the name suggests, involves lewd shaking of the buttocks. In the Comments section, Con agrees that twerking is inappropriate. However, twerking and booty dancing are basically the same thing.[8] What is lewd about twerking that is not done in booty dancing? I shall now turn the debate back to Con. Notes [1] Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved. This applies for all other Scriptures used in this debate by myself. [2] http://biblehub.com... [3] Brown, Driver, Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon (pg. 509), quoted from http://www.aubeacon.com... [4] http://www.telegraph.co.uk... [5] https://play.google.com... pg. 10 (or pg. 2, if Google’s bar at the bottom of the screen is used) [6] Ibid, pg. 24 (or 16) [7] http://www.sparkpeople.com... [8] http://www.jasonfarrisawesome.com...