ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, February 10, 1996 TAG: 9602130052
SECTION: RELIGION PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WACO, TEXAS
SOURCE: DIANE JENNINGS DALLAS MORNING NEWS
As chairman of Baylor University's board of regents, Randall Fields is a devout Baptist and avid Baylor Bear. He's also a dancing Bear.
Now that the administration of the world's biggest Baptist university has sanctioned dancing on campus, Fields confesses that he took dance lessons at a community college while attending Baylor in the '70s.
The class helped him keep up at off-campus ``functions,'' as dances were euphemistically called.
``I've got a little degree,'' the San Antonio lawyer said with a chuckle. ``I'm so proud of that.''
Baylor's decision to break with Baptist tradition and allow dancing on campus this spring was revealed with little fanfare last month in an informal question-and-answer period between students and school president Robert Sloan. The news came as a pleasant surprise to many students who have pushed for the change for years, but it startled some observers who have watched the school struggle to balance its Baptist heritage with scholastic ambition.
``Students are really excited about it,'' said student president Collin Cox. ``This has been discussed with committees I've been on for a number of months.''
The decision to allow campus dancing follows the school's move five years ago to distance itself from the Baptist General Convention of Texas, said Nancy Ammerman, professor of sociology of religion at Hartford Seminary. ``It's probably simply a minor sign of the increased sense of independence that the university has.''
Historically, dancing was unofficially banned on Baylor's campus because Baptist tradition frowned on the activity. That tradition, still upheld at many Baptist schools, springs from ``a particular Southern evangelical notion of piety,'' said Ammerman.
A ``good Christian life'' traditionally was defined by avoiding a number of vices, she said. ``Those vices were in fact very tied to the saloon - so that drinking, dancing, smoking, to a certain extent gambling, kind of all went together.''
Other Protestant denominations abandoned the ban on dancing years ago, Ammerman said.
The symbolism of Baylor's move may be significant, but among Baptists dancing has ceased to be a front-burner issue.
``It is not the great issue of life,'' said the Rev. Tim Hedquist, church administrator at First Baptist Church of Dallas. ``I don't hear the preacher getting up and preaching about it.''
Besides, ``most of us as Baptists are too clumsy to dance,'' he said.
The Rev. Charles Wade, president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, said dancing ceased to be a hot topic in the '60s. ``It became clear that the moral issues were far more serious than whether you danced or not,'' he said.
``Slowly, over the years, most Baptist preachers have focused their concerns on issues related to premarital sex, sex outside of marriage, drugs, alcohol - issues that directly affect the life and future of our young people,'' Wade said.
Not all Baptists greeted the news nonchalantly.
The Rev. Miles Seaborn, president of Southern Baptists of Texas, a conservative coalition of churches, said dances are ``not the atmosphere you want to create to generate wholesome, godly living.''
``Every dance is not going to turn into an orgy,'' he said, ``but on the other hand we know that with the music we have in this day and time, the atmosphere, the dress, the emotions and everything else out there - we're all human.''
Seaborn said he is skeptical of Baylor's ability to assure that dancing is wholesome, as officials have pledged.
``Lewd gyrations'' may be prohibited, he said, but ``who's going to be the gyration inspector?''
Dance inspectors are not in Baylor's plans, officials said, but music is expected to conform to Christian standards. Specifics have yet to be determined, said Martha Lou Scott, dean for student life.
``The population we deal with are an adult population, legally and in every other sense,'' she said. ``And we trust them to use their judgment.''
Besides, while some Baptist schools ban all dancing, Baylor students have been hoofing it at university-approved functions held off campus for years. That's one of the reasons Sloan cited in ending the ban.
``One of the things that people have appreciated is Dr. Sloan said we're not going to be hypocrites,'' said Scott.
The dancing decision may be easier for traditional Baptists to accept because the president, who took office last year, is also a Baptist preacher, Wade said.
Previous presidents have avoided the issue because ``they didn't want to send a signal that they were trying to be less Christian or less Baptist,'' Wade said.
Baylor may have a strong Baptist identity, but fewer than half its 12,000 students are Baptists. In recent years students have pushed for dancing on campus, Scott said, and several studies have recommended the change.
One benefit of holding dances on campus is to serve as a unifying activity for the students, said Cox, the student president.
``This is a great thing for the university,'' he said.
Not everybody agreed.
Shannon Attebury, a member of the student involvement board, said she lamented the loss of a Baylor tradition.
The prohibition set Baylor apart, she said. ``I don't like to mess with tradition.''
Nonetheless, Attebury plans to attend the first dance, tentatively planned for this spring. ``It's history,'' she said. ``I want to be there.''
Students may be excited by the prospect of making history, but news of the change caused nary a ripple among alumni. ``I frankly have not had one call,'' said Ray Burchette, executive vice president of the Baylor Alumni Association.
``The majority of our alumni are a little sharper than that,'' he said. The ban was ``just an anachronism.''
Fields, the chairman of the board, also said he had received ``zero calls. And I expect zero calls. It's a non-issue.''
Fields said he hoped the change ``will help the Baptist world come out of its hard shell.''
Seaborn doesn't agree.
Dancing on campus ``is just a little step down the trail'' to the secular world, Seaborn said, and that's not what Baylor's founders intended.
``There are people who have given (their) life's blood, their prayers and money to Baylor, that would literally turn over in their graves if they ever thought it would come to this point,'' he said.
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