Holy Dancing

Topic: Movement - Liturgical Dance
Alma White gave the term "Holy Dancing" a bad odor, but not because she brought ridicule to movement. Holy Jumper was less pejorative than Holy Roller. The problem arose in the 1920s when she published books like The Ku Klux Klan in Prophecy [1] that supported the organization. [2]

Her ingrained bigotry had ebbed somewhat when she lived in the West, [3] but probably was reignited by the success of William Seymour. [4] As his doctrine of speaking in tongues was accepted by many Pentecostals, her own popularity waned. Worse, when her wayward husband [5] finally was sanctified, it was by speaking in tongues at a church in England in 1910. [6] The same year she attacked Seymour in Demons and Tongues:

"With due consideration for the colored people, and with a heart interest in their spiritual uplifting, we must say it was very fitting that the devil should choose a colored man to launch out the ‘Tongues’ movement in which the works of the flesh are so plainly manifest in these last days when the Old Red Dragon has well-nigh swallowed up every religious movement on the globe. There is no other race through which the Dragon could work more effectually than through the colored race." [7]

Charles Harrison Mason did not use the term "holy dancing" in 1926 when he defined acceptable and unacceptable forms of movement for members of the Church of God in Christ. After reviewing Old Testament references to dance, he explicated the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15:25. "Dancing here denotes or expresses joy." More specifically, it was "the heavenly joy over the repentance of one sinner." [8]

This use of movement differed from the shouts of abandoned and runaway slaves observed by Thomas Wentworth Higginson in 1862. On Saint Helena Island, South Carolina, the ritual included a phase when individuals used movement to invoke the presence of the Holy Spirit. Gestures changed when people were affected by Its presence. [9]

Mason and White agreed dance was not part of the sanctification experience. Instead, it came after as an expression of joy at being saved. She used it in revivals as an enticement to commitment, but the commitment still took the form of repentance, not dance.

Dorothy Love Coates used the term in a list of responses an individual might see in church in 1961. In the denouement section of "Let’s Come In The House," she sang about getting happy, speaking in an unknown tongue, crying out in "a spiritual trance," and doing the holy dance. [10]

After Tony Heilbut quoted the song in The Gospel Sound in 1971, [11] the phrase entered the academic dictionary as a way to describe one part of the African-American religious experience. Thus, Ray Allen wrote "it is during extended drive sections that they are most apt to shout, cry, holy dance, and completely ‘fall out’ into states of Spirit possession." [12]

Some whites, [13] like Robert Owens, inserted the word "holy" into their discussions of Mason, [14] but African-American scholars, like Calvin White [15] and Elton Weaver, [16] used his unqualified word. There were exceptions like C. J. Rhodes, who wrote Mason was "intentional in keeping the holy dance and shouting as central to the liturgy." [17] Others who used White’s term included Willa Ward [18] and Estrelda Alexander [19] who were trying to communicate across ethnic barriers.

At the time Coates’ Gospel Harmonettes made its recording, movement was entering churches as Liturgical Dance, but in a severely constrained way. Bill Hamon thought the stimulus was the Latter Rain movement in British Columbia in 1954. He made clear "this was completely different from the Pentecostal ‘dancing in the spirit,’ an uncontrolled, eyes shut, emotional frenzy." [20]

John Hawkins credited the Sacred Dance Guild [21] that was founded in 1956 by a Unitarian minister and a follower of Ruth St. Denis. [22] He maintained dance included "any ordered bodily movement to the accompaniment of music, ruling out ‘free’ or ecstatic manifestations." [23]

Many believe the catalyst was Vatican II. [24] After 1963, lay people began considering how to redo the liturgy, and some included dance. From there, like folk masses, the idea radiated to other mainstream denominations. Soon after, charismatic forms of worship developed that utilized speaking in tongues. [25]

All these forms subordinated movement to the word. The dances first were used to illustrate or interpret scripture. As such, they were not done by parishioners, but by a rehearsed corp like that formed by Clariece Paulk, mentioned in the post for 14 October 2018.

Liturgical dance not only was not a path to conversion, it wasn’t even used to express the joy mentioned by White and Mason. With time, Hawkins suggested this inhibition weakened as parishioners became more aware of the varieties of dance. Some, like Paulk, incorporated many forms to attract the attention of congregants, while others like Dances of Universal Peace used the circle dance as a way form of meditation. [26]

Hawkins suggested still others saw dance as a form of prayer. Like Born-Again Believers, they met privately to use movement to explore their own religious beliefs or to heal. They would not have performed in public, and certainly would not have posted videos to YouTube.

End Notes
1. Alma Bridwell White. The Ku Klux Klan in Prophecy. Zarephath, New Jersey: The Good Citizen, 1925.

2. Wikipedia. "Alma Bridwell White."

3. In a book published before the rise of Seymour, she mentioned her experiences teaching African-American girls in Salt Lake City, and preaching to a racially-mixed group in Paris, Kentucky. (Mollie Alma White. Looking back from Beulah. Denver: The Pentecostal Union, 1902. On Salt Lake, 59; on Paris, 259.)

4. For more on William Seymour, see the post for 7 December 2017.

5. The marriage did not meet the expectations of either party. When Alma rewrote her autobiography in 1921, she spoke frankly about his shortcomings. (Alma White. The Story of My Life. Zarephath, New Jersey: Pillar of Fire, volume 2, 1921.) He simply said, when he moved to England in 1914, he was freed "from a complexity of affairs" that followed from the success of her missions. (Kent White. The Word of God Coming Again. Winton, Bournemouth, England: The Apostolic Faith Church, 1919. 22.)

6. Kent White. 17. He wrote: "I see how wonderfully the Lord ordered all things in my life, and brought me here from America to England that I might get my baptism with the Holy Ghost in this Church, July 7th, 1910."

7. Alma White. Demons and Tongues. Bound Brook, New Jersey: The Pentecostal Union, 1910. 79-80.

8. "Is It Right for the Saints of God to Dance?" 28-29 in Yearbook of the Church of God in Christ for the Year 1926, Memphis, Tennessee. Compiled by Lilian Brooke Coffey, Chicago, Illinois. 29. It appeared in the section on "Doctrinal Subjects of the Church of God in Christ." Reprinted by Estrelda Y. Alexander. Black Fire Reader. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2013. 9-10.

9. For more on Saint Helena Island and the complete citation, see the post for 20 September 2018.

10. The Gospel Harmonettes. "Let’s Come In The House." Savoy 45-4158. 1961. Written by Dorothy Love Coates. (Discogs website posting for the 45 rpm recording)

11. Tony Heilbut. The Gospel Sound. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971. 17.

12. Ray Allen. Singing in the Spirit. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991. 123. Emphasis added.

13. Racial classifications were made by locating photographs of authors. I could find no information on Mary Menefee who wrote: "Mason wanted to see the denomination adopt the same vibrant and emotionally moving mannerisms that he had seen among former slaves, which were considered controversial— holy dances, ecstatic worship, and falling under the power of God." ("Charles Harrison Mason 1866–1961." Encyclopedia of Arkansas website. Last updated 27 October 2016. Emphasis added.)

14. Robert R. Owens. "Bishop Charles Harrison Mason: The Apostle of Reconciliation." 63-72 in With Signs Following: The Life and Ministry of Charles Harrison Mason. Edited by Raynard D. Smith. Danvers, Massachusetts: Christian Board of Publishers, 2015. 69. "Mason insisted on retaining the worship and prayer traditions of slave religion, which included the prayer circle and lively worship (such as shouting, jumping, and the ‘Holy Dance’), but, at the same time, he led the church in developing a new Pentencostal spirituality." (emphasis added)

15. Calvin White, Jr. The Rise to Respectability. Fayetteville, University of Arkansas Press, 2012. Introduction. "Black Holiness believers, often composed of uneducated ex-slave preachers, stood in opposition, holding on to rituals such as shouting, dancing, and charismatic preaching, and the church served as their battleground. Followers of Holiness rejected the modernization of black religious practices and as the movement spread, Charles Harrison Mason and Charles Price Jones emerged as its two most significant leaders." (emphasis added)

16. Elton H. Weaver III. "Charles Harrison Mason (1866-1961)." Tennessee Encyclopedia website. "Mason encouraged blacks to embrace their cultural heritage and gave them space to express themselves in church. He allowed the working classes to shout, dance, testify about their daily struggles, speak in tongues, use musical instruments, and sing gospel music." (emphasis added)

17. C. J. Rhodes. "‘Full of Sound and Fury’: Why the Sanctified Church Needs Reform." His website. 7 January 2014. Emphasis added.

18. For Willa Ward’s use of "holy dancing," see the post for 7 October 2018.

19. Estrelda Y. Alexander. "The Spirit of God: Christian Renewal in African American Pentecostalism." 129-149 in Spirit of God: Christian Renewal in the Community of Faith. Edited by Jeffrey W. Barbeau and Beth Felker Jones. Downer’s Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2015. 134. "The holy dance is distinctive from all other dancing." (emphasis added)

20. Bill Hamon. The Eternal Church. Shippensburg, Pennsylvania: Destiny Image, 2003 edition. 232.

21. John Hawkins. "Varieties of Religious Dance." Sacred Space 3:24-27:2002. 24.

22. "History." Sacred Dance Guild website. The founders were Robert Storer (the Unitarian), Mary Jane Wolbers (the one trained in the techniques of Ted Shawn and Ruth St. Denis) and Margaret Taylor Doane. St. Denis was mentioned in the post for 14 October 2018.

23. Hawkins. 24.

24. Cecelia Goodnow. "Roots of Dance in Worship Go Back to ‘Charismatic’ Style of ’60s." Seattle Post-Intelligencer website. 5 April 2006.

25. Janet Lynn’s involvement with the tongues movement in the early 1970s was mentioned in the post for 16 October 2018.

26. Their movements were described in the post for 2 November 2018.