Over the last decade, body worship – a group dance incorporating sign language and cheesy Christian music – has been all the rage in the Asian American church.  And it is seemingly found only in the Asian American church: search body worship onYoutube and you get 373 hits – all of which are Asian American performances.

 So prevalent is body worship in Asian American churches, that many have identified it as an Asian American Christian distinctive.  Harvard students, for example, have even publicly stated their hope for body worship to be “a unique contribution [by the AAchurch] to the ethnic and cultural fabric of America.” 

So at first blush, it sounds great.  So much of the AA church is imitative of the white church, that anytime we can be creative and come up with something distinctive and uniquely AA, I want to jump up and holler.

Yet . . . Maybe it’s me. But I just don’t get it.  Whenever I see a youth group getting on stage to do their body worship thing, I cringe.  I feel embarrassed all over, for them, for me, for the church.  I break out in a cold sweat.  I start losing my religion.  Now don’t get me wrong.  I’m not one of those stodgy, crotchety old geezers who preaches fire and brimstone against dancing.  I like dancing.  Like to watch it, like to do it.  I just don’t like this thing called body worship.

What the heck is body worship?  People tell me that it’s supposed to inspire greater thoughts about God – that’s why it’s called body worship.  Err . . . how do I put this politely? . . . no.  Watching the youth group body worship has never induced in me a scintilla of an iota of a smidgen of a lofty thought about God.

 

The following are my reasons why body worship should be cut out. 
(I was going to post a few illustrative examples from Youtube, but I didn’t want to embarrass any of the youth.  Just go to Youtube yourself, and only the smallest of samplings will prove my following points.)

 I am against body worship because:

• It does absolutely nothing to edify the church.  I suppose you could give me all the religious jargon and theories behind how it is supposed to edify, but bottom-line is this: it is nothing more than a performance (usually mediocre at best).  As we know, worship is never about performing, anymore than we’d ask our pastor to perform a sermon, or our worship team to perform for us.  Entertainment does not equate to edification.

• Watching teenage boys with sissified expressions of constipation on their faces with their hands clasped to their chests makes me want to inject them with a serious dose of testosterone.  I watch as they spread their skinny arms outlike a ballerina, their frilly t-shirts sashaying around them, and I secretly find myself wondering about a few of them.

• It is boring. Okay?  Maybe no one has ever told you point-blank, because everyone is so polite in the church and so careful not to offend.  But here it is: body worship is boring.  The slow intro, the cheesy music, the same motions done over and over and over and over again . . . yawn.

• It is evolving into hip-hop dance.  Some churches apparently received the memoabout how boring body worship is, because they have jazzed it up, quickened thepace, adrenalized the music.  It is now a group-synchronized hip-hop event.  I’m not against that – hey, it looks really fun, and if I were young, I’d be first to sign up.  But please, don’t call it body worship.  Call it what it is: a group dance.  When you have “body worship church competitions,” you are not worshiping at all; you are having a dance competition.  Nothing wrong with that.  But you prefer to call it body worship competition because the church would never approve of the youth group participating in a dance competition.  Bet you never thought you’d get away with it this long.

• It is compromising. Men in the church (the married ones, the single ones, the teenage one, the spiritual ones)are now staring at young ladies dance before them.  These young ladies are often alluringly dressed in tight t-shirts (with plunging necklines) and tighter jeans, and the men are trying their best not to stare at the shimmying bodies and jiggling breasts.

• It is embarrassing. I hate to say this, absolutely detest to have to admit this because it reinforces some negative stereotypes about our race, but we do not have dancing genes, if you know what I mean.  Out of synch, mechanical, choppy, flat-footed. There are many exceptions, of course, but if I may be frank, I’m tired of seeing a bunch of William Hungs doing body worship.

Hey, I happen to think that synchronized group dancing is a wonderful activity for the youth/fellowship group to do.  We have church basketball teams entering inter-church basketball tournaments.  Same with volleyball and softball.  They’re great for unity, great for personal relationships to grow.  So it should also be for synchronized dancing – it’s a great way for camaraderie to build between the guys and the gals, in a healthy group setting.  The excitement of competition further fosters unity.  But we shouldn’t pretend it is something it is not; we should not call worship something that so blatantly is not.