Among the ancient pagan nations, fertility dances were common. These were dances designed to stimulate the sexual passions of both participants and observers. The Canaanites performed circle dances around their idols and sacred poles honoring the fertility forces. The worship of Baal was associated with wild, unrestrained dances.

An interviewer for Look magazine reported awhile back:

“The characteristic dances of our new age of revelry are all variants of the twist. . . . The dancers do not touch, they do not talk. . . . Each does whatever charade the name of the dance calls for. . . . They look as if their bodies are screaming.

“‘It’s a kind of fertility rite, designed to combat the sterility of modern life,’ says a young medical student, asked to account for his generation’s dancing style. But this is fertility magic without bodily contact. . . . A student nurse . . . says, ‘It’s sort of sexy . . . all those bodies grinding, but never touching.”’

Though rock dancing varies considerably, the movements in some of them are thus similar to those in fertility dances, and the effect can be the same. To the extent that any modern dance is an imitation of the erotic gestures of some pagan dance, then Scriptural principles would rule it out for Christians, since God’s Word warns against “shameful conduct” and “things which are not becoming.” (Eph. 5:4)