At Cedarville, Dance Restrictions Lifted but not Completely

For all the blithe dismissals of slipperly slope arguments, people make them for a reason. Rules about drinking will likely be next to go. It saddens me to see Cedarville begin the fiial stages of this journey...but it doesn't surprise me a bit.

So here you are, gleefully writhing to the beat--or, for us boomers, groovin' to the tunes--of a song you never heard before when, all of a sudden, you realize the lyrics are inappropriate! "Oh no!" you yell to your partner over the din, "I've gotta stop dancing to this song! The lyrics are inappropriate! I'll have to sit this one out or else!" Of course, you can go sit on the sidelines and listen to the song until it's over...just can't groove to it.

In the words of that infamous bear, "Oh help and bother!"

I'm not for the kind of dancing that normally goes on at clubs ect. . . except for between married people I guess? Is a Scottish sword dance or a hillbilly jig forbidden in the same we ought not be gettin' lo? All forms and contexts for dancing are not created equal. What about dancing with joy found in the Bible that Joel mentions? It seems like all the fundamentalist talk since the dawn of the movement largely ignored WHY such dancing might be wrong, at least after a few generations. Sooner or later, if a rule book says "no dancing" in an un-nuanced way, the rule will be mocked on any fundamentalist campus for good reason. We should try really hard not to have strict prohibitions on things that the Bible tells us to do in praise (except for the playing of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sackbut ]sackbuts , please can we get rid of those?

Sometimes rules like this flatten out very different activities in to categories so narrowly, that moral judgments are confused. I'm not sure that this is how I would write it, but it does seem like there should be room for a categorical difference between going to a community barn dance and going to da clubs.

Kevin Bacon!

Personally, I think the only thing a college can reasonably expect to control is conduct on campus, as far as these kinds of activities go. Monitoring off campus conduct accurately and fairly is an impossible task, IMO.

When you look at a policy change, you really have to consider what the status quo is and then ask why the change? Why does any institution of higher learning need dancing? If they got along OK for all these years without it, why do they need it now?

It's a very different question from "Why should a school that's never had a rule continue to not have a rule"?

So... how many students would not attend the school because of its dancing rules? So now the student body's going to greatly improve since these students are now going to attend? Or the ones already there are going to be much more focused and serious learners now without the rule? Doesn't seem like there's a big win here from an educational point of view. Can't really find a win from any point of view, but maybe I just lack imagination.

There was a time when rules about movies and dancing were all the rage in Christian colleges, but it was just words on paper. They can't enforce those rules effectively. What is really hilarious when professors could have a VCR and rent from Blockbuster, or have HBO piped into their homes, but the student body couldn't attend a movie theater? How silly is that? Do rules against dancing include the Hokey Pokey? After all, the actions include 'shaking it all about'! We just can't be havin' that.

This all brings back fond memories of getting demerits for not tying my tennis shoes.

I can't imagine anyone deciding on a college based on their rules about dancing, but then I don't know anyone personally who is that shallow. I also think there is a sort of self-selection process that takes place in college- those that are serious about academics do the work and actually graduate, and those who use college to get away from mom and dad and party do so until their parents pull the financial plug.

I will say that I understand the desire of a college to create and sustain a serious academic and spiritually beneficial atmosphere... but that's applicable and enforceable only to the campus itself, IMO.

I understand that we don't just drop laws that are difficult to enforce, but enforcement depends on a definition of the behavior being controlled. It is clear that 1) a person under 21 2)who drinks an alcoholic beverage- has broken the law. Unless it's Nyquil.

But dancing? What kind of dancing? To what kind of music? What are 'objectionable lyrics'? If you can't draw the lines, how do you know who has crossed them?

I agree that the loosening of moral boundaries is never a good thing, but those boundaries are supposed to be built and reinforced by parents and the local church, IMO. College is not the place for everyone to suddenly get a moral compass. That horse is long out of the corral.

I agree in principle, Bro. Linscott. Really I do.

For instance (and I hope this bunny trail isn't too far off the main road), let's deconstruct what we mean when we say 'porn'. Does this include partial nudity and simulated sex that is in many PG13 & R-rated movies and television?Or does it only apply to full frontal and graphic sex? I mean, you can watch lesbian and homosexual relationships depicted between children (characters) on Glee and Pretty Little Liars- that's regular network and cable television. Isn't that sexually deviant entertainment?

So- do Christian colleges have a list of TV shows that students are/aren't allowed to watch?

I think setting forth guidelines and expectations of moral behavior is important, and in a sense, every rule is based on an honor system, because any reasonably intelligent and motivated person can find a way around the rules if that's what they really want to do.

But there are some behaviors that I think are very difficult to define- again, if you can't draw the line, how do you tell people they've crossed it? It's easy to say "No bumping and grinding"- but there's plenty of room between the foxtrot and the lambada to engage in immoral physical contact. So a college admin has to decide what they mean when they say 'dance' and 'inappropriate lyrics' and 'unhealthy environments'.

It isn't that there shouldn't be rules- I'm a total stick-in-the-mud myself- it's just that I think the energy it takes to craft and enforce some rules is pretty much wasted when the lines can't be drawn definitively or enforced adequately.

Cedarville is a fine university, as far as universities go. I've stopped calling it a Christian college many moons ago- after all, it's in my neck of the woods, and my husband used to deliver equipment there nearly every week and he saw with his own eyes what passes for 'Christian' out there. So I'm not really disappointed as much as ambivalent. Or maybe cynical?

When girls are wearing shirts cut down to there, walking around with boy's hands in the back pockets of their jeans, stopping occasionally to give each other a tonsillectomy, then yeah- I'm going to say it doesn't look like a Christian college.

This thread hasn't really been about CU's doctrinal positions, but about rules of conduct. Institutions craft policies that they believe best provide the atmosphere they hope to achieve and the kinds of students that will help them achieve it.

My 'argument', if you will, is not about the presence of rules, but the ability to define those that are most important, those that can be enforced, and in a college setting- the 'timing'. If a student reaches college age and they have already been to dances and proms, lost their purity, have an iPod full of music with immoral lyrics, they generally aren't going to have an epiphany about Godly conduct at 18- they are just going to work around it.

Where we need to focus on holiness is in our churches, equipping parents to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. I think that is why so many find rules against dancing ludicrous- no one cares about excellence of character, striving for holiness, or pursuing purity.

I probably sounds at this point like I'm contradicting myself. I know what I mean, I'm just not doing a good job of communicating it.

Thanks for providing the links Audrey. I see they address the "dance" issue in detail .. I like the way they've put the handbook together - it EXPLAINS why the rules are in place..

Thank you Audrey.

Ricky