Posted on 04/02/2008 11:35:30 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
SPRING HILL, Fla. — After taking time off recently due to ministry burn-out, pastor’s wife Julie Torrey returned to her church with a new passion: interpretive dance. Though her husband and some in the congregation have yet to fully embrace her new ministry, she is committed to "communicating the gospel in the beautiful language of dance and movement."
"My dance interpretations are as important as the sermon itself," Julie says. "They speak to people in a unique way."
But husband and pastor Ed Torrey appears to have only grudgingly accepted his wife’s new calling. He allows her to take the platform after his sermons to give a dance interpretation of what he just preached about. Her quasi-ballet movements, sashays and twirls have become a regular, if not especially beloved, feature of each service. People note that Pastor Ed often flips through his sermon notes or bulletin while his wife weaves around the stage.
"You can tell he’s not a big fan of dance," says one church member.
But Julie won’t hear any demurrals.
"I quit college so he could follow his ministry calling," she says. "Now it’s my turn."
Some now believe Ed is preaching on increasingly difficult topics to try to throw Julie off. He just finished a long series on the Trinity, a mini-series on tithing and is starting a new one he calls a "complex theological study of eschatology."
"It’s like he’s throwing down the gauntlet and saying, ‘Interpret that,’" says one member.
Sounds like her meds need adjusted.
I know some churches who would say she is going to hell..
About ten years ago, Baylor U (Baylor originally founded as a Baptist college) had its first official Dance and a local Baptist college (East Texas Baptist University) sent them a nasty note and sent people there to mission to them about the evils of dance..
This is the biggest reason I’m glad Catholic priests don’t marry.
Exactly, God forbid she go so far as quoting Psalm 150, Jeremiah 31:13, 2 Samuel 6:13-17,20-23, Psalm 30:11, Psalm 149:3, Ecclesiastes 3:1-4, Jeremiah 3:31-3-5... yea, that would really cross the line..
"[Jesus] was preaching in the synagogues of Judea. While the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret" (Luke 4:44; 5:1).
Julie may want to take notice that it is the of God, not the dance of God.
Other headlines include:
Small group members decide to stop feigning interest in each other
Glossolalia theory of Nixon tapes gains ground
Mega-church downsizes, cuts non-essential members
Gotta learn to proofread more better.
Or pay attention to my own tagline.
LOL - Relax folks. Lark News is a satire site for Christian “News”. Read some of the other stuff on there - it’s hysterical.
Sadly, this sort of "liturgical dance" exists in the real world. It would be riotously funny, if it weren't tragic. It's almost universally very badly done; one of the prerequisites for being a "liturgical dancer" seems to be utter incompetence at dance. And here, I speak only of the female liturgical dancers. The male variety are unspeakable.
Yep. The bend is just ahead and she's heading full speed around it.
Sing it:
...
... going off the rails on the crazy train ...
...
Hey, in this day and age one can’t tell satire from real life! LOL!
. . . it's been my experience that liturgical "dancers" are the ones who couldn't find a gig anywhere else.
I've never actually seen one who had the slightest competence in her (thankfully not 'his') chosen field.
I made such merciless fun of our (Episcopal) rector after he invited one of these silly women to do her thing, he never did it again!
No such nonsense goes on in our Catholic parish, and would probably occur only over Monsignor's dead body.
Yet another heretic.
I enjoy interpretive dance in church every now and again, but I think I would tire of it EVERY Sunday.
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