# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 11 09_S43
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

43

the young children, who dance indeed without sin, and adds: "if dancing were in itself a sin, one must not permit it to the children." But lest anyone hereupon get the thought that Luther approves of having dancing lessons given to children, his own words in the exposition of the 4th Commandment shall be cited, where among the parents who ruin their children he reckons also those "who give their children occasion to love the world, who care no further for their children than that they may step along bravely, skip, dance and adorn themselves, please people, excite their desires, and conform themselves to the world." (3,1824)

That Luther speaks of the dancing of children only insofar as it is a childish play, in which they need no instruction, one sees also from his explanation of the words Zech. 8, 5: "And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof"; for he says thereby: "The foundations and cloisters ought to give the half of their goods and holiness, that their being and works might have half so much testimony in the Scripture; how will they stand, when Christ shall say that the singing and dancing of the children in the streets is dearer to him than all their howling and murmuring in their churches." Is that not at the same time a plain explanation of what Luther meant above by the sour-looking hypocrites and self-grown saints?

In the third place Luther says that he does not condemn dancing, "except the excess, if it be unchaste or too much." And then he speaks with a plainly emphasized condition: "But where it goes on decently, I leave to the wedding its right." That it did not go on very decently even then, we see from the description which Luther gives of the life of the people shortly before that passage on dancing, in that he says: "Such excess, as is going on in our times, is out of all measure: where men do not eat and drink, but gorge and guzzle, revel and make a show, as if it were art or strength to gorge and swill much; where men also do not seek to become merry, but to be mad and drunk; those are swine, not men; to such Christ would not give wine, nor come to them." Still more bluntly does Luther express himself on the deep corruption of the popular life of that day in a sermon on the Epistle for the 2nd Sunday in Advent, on the words: "Let us walk honestly, as in the day, etc." "Nowadays they are not swine, but coarser than swine; you desperate swine, you are swine and remain swine; where pious, honorable citizens, women and maidens go, one must be ashamed, whoever else wants to be a man." Consequently Luther speaks neither for the dancing of that day nor of this, the worldly kind; for though one may try here and there to give it a finer varnish and a prettier mask, yet there remains beneath it the three-headed idol whom the world serves therewith, namely the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

In the fourth place Luther says: "Faith and love let themselves not be danced out nor sat out, if thou art decent and temperate therein." Herewith the god of this world completely bewitches his dear faithful in many ways; they persuade themselves and others that they are already so full of faith and love that it is not at all possible that they could lose anything of the one or the other, whereas the real reason lies in this, that they have little or nothing to lose. Granted now, however, that faith and love could not be danced out, they could certainly be still less danced in; at least nothing of it is to be found in the Holy Scripture. Further, the devil blinds such people, eager to dance, but very unwilling as to believing and loving, so that they imagine they fulfil Luther's conditions, and withal are "decent and temperate," although their gestures, talk and words show exactly the opposite and they themselves have a brand-mark in their conscience. Thereby they firmly and fixedly imagine that they could actually follow Luther's counsel: "become a child, then dancing will not harm thee." Ah, if only these poor people would begin elsewhere to turn about and become as the children. For the dance is surely quite a new way to come into the kingdom of heaven! How does it come that these people want to be children only in dancing, but otherwise let themselves think that they have already attained in understanding, in faith and love, in short in everything, to full manhood and are far exalted above other people? If they had now in their childish ignorance for a time danced and played with the children in the street, and let themselves be well laughed at for it, they should yet now once consider the word of St. Paul, 1 Cor. 13, 11: "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things." Finally the Father of Lies makes them also in this a blue haze before the eyes, so that they do not see how they have so wholly nothing of faith and love, since they neither believe nor practice all that the Word of God says in the two weighty chapters Rom. 14 and 1 Cor. 8 on the abuse of Christian liberty; for granted that they could actually dance with a good conscience, yet they should as Christians avoid all offense to their fellow Christians in the world, and rather leave it undone after Paul's word and example: "All things are lawful for me, but all things edify not." (1 Cor. 10, 23.)

Now we will also look at the passages in which Luther bears testimony without any reservation against worldly dancing, without being a sour-looking hypocrite and self-grown saint.

The origin of all such dancing he derives from the son of the godless Cain, from Jubal, and says in a sermon on Gen. 4, 21: "Of him came the fiddlers and pipers," also: "the third son by the other wives has gone about with dancing, skipping and courting, has set his date upon good days, pleasure and joy. That is the way of the world. So it is with one another; to strive after great nourishment and riches, to bring land and people under themselves, to have power and honor and to live in pleasure and good days." (3, 17. B.)

Among the saints whom men in the papacy have chosen as patrons for all manner of things, Luther cites also St. Vitus, in that he says: "he has his part in the wretched dancing and skipping." (3, 1734)

In that he enumerates the transgressors of the third commandment he reckons among them also: "Whoever gluttonizes, drinks, plays, dances, is idle, practices unchastity" (10, 190), and thereby assigns to dancing its place in a not very honorable company.

But especially does Luther rebuke the sins which take place at public dancing, quite emphatically in the explanation of the 6th Commandment; after he has spoken of the outward signs of unchastity and mentioned as such especially the looking, the hearing, the prattle, the handclasping and embracing and the kissing, he continues thus: "These mentioned signs occur never oftener and coarser than in the public dances. It is not to be told how many and great sins happen there, and what the sight and hearing take in there: besides, what mischief the touching and prattle bring. In short, the world is world, yes, an un-world and an enemy of God. One must not seek anything good in the world that God would please; for there is one sin upon another. One also perceives the great wrath of God; yet one laughs, one hops and springs, is merry and of good cheer, as if no danger were at hand and all our doing good and precious." (3,1937)

Finally in the Hauspostille on the 2nd Advent, Luther speaks of the quick coming of the Last Day and says on the words of Christ: "Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness,": "When they are most secure, beating the drum, skipping and dancing, they will lie there unawares"; and then: 'As it went on in Sodom, they gorged, swilled, danced, shouted for joy, and would not have wished the pious Lot a farthing, etc.--so it goes also nowadays, etc. When this one with the wench goes skipping and dancing about, he will suddenly lie there.'

Should now the explanation of the first passage from Luther's writings, which the lovers of dancing adduce for themselves, not have sufficed for the readers, then they will hopefully find in the five last ones as many mighty sling-stones from David's shepherd's bag against the giant Goliath, namely the hellish patron saint of the worldly