From
The September 2001 St John's Eagle
“The Lord of the Dance" - By John Harcourt
Students of our Prayerbook's history are often surprised to learn that the General Convention of 1785 was strongly opposed to creeds as such. Its Proposed Book scrapped both the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed and deleted "He descended into hall" from the Apostles' Creed. It took firm pressure from the newly consecrated Bishop Seabury to restore the Apostles' Creed to its traditional form and to reinstate the Nicene Creed. The Athanasian Creed Creed did not appear in any American Prayerbook before our present one, where it is included in the section entitled "Historical Documents of the Church" (pp. 864-5).
In the long history o the church, creeds developed slowly and obscurely out of the liturgy, especially for baptism. Their very names are misleading: The Apostles' Creed dates from the eighth century; the Athanasian Creed came into use in early medieval times, long after the death of Athanasian in 373. The creed adopted by the Council of Nicaea in 325 is significantly different from the text we now use at the Eucharist. Its revision at the Council of Constantinople (381) is closer to what we now know, but not entirely so. The original reads "and was incarnate by the Holy Sprit and the Virgin Mary," and the latter addition, in the Western church, of the notorious "Filioque" clause ("who proceeds from the Father and the Son") continues to this day to infuriate members of Eastern Orthodox churches.
Creeds are formulated at specific places and times—usually times of division and crisis. The councils that drew them up were subjected to intense political pressure and to acrimonious internal discord. The language of the creeds inevitably reflects the theology of that particular moment in history. Creedal pronouncements are most emphatically not for all times and places.
The Nicene Creed is far stranger than most of us seem conscious of on Sunday mornings, Its assumes a three-tied universe: God an his court are "up there"; our ordinary world is "down there:' and, in the Apostles' Creed, hell is "down underneath." Its verbs are vertical: "up and down," "over and under": worlds like "come down," "rose again," ascended into heaven," shall come again." Its world is organized in hierarchical categories, reflecting the political and social structures of those centuries. Its theology is an amalgam of Hebrew scriptures and the neo-Platonic philosophies dominant in the Hellenistic world. That intellectual context has long been lost to us: we would be hard put to explain the meaning of "begotten" or "proceeds."
i suppose that at some future time, the Nicene Creed will take its place in the back of the Prayerbook as one more historical document of the church. But what will take its place in out liturgy? What statement of faith will be able to engage our minds as well as our emotions?
Often, at the eight o'clock Eucharist, I wonder what it would be like to substitute "The Lord of the Dance,: which I first encountered at a service at St. John's.
I danced in the morning when the world was begun,
And I danced in the moon and stars and the sun.
And I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth;
At Bethlehem I had my birth.
Dance, then, wherever you may be.
I am the lord of the Dance, said he;.
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be.
And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he.
I danced for the scribe and the pharisee,
But they would not dance, and they wouldn't follow me.
I danced for the fisherman, for James and John,
They came with me and the dance went on.
Dance, then, wherever you may be.
I am the lord of the Dance, said he;.
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be.
And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he.
I danced on the Sabbath and I cured the lame,
The holy people said it was a shame.
They whipped and the stripped and they hung me on high;
They left me there on a cross to die.
Dance, then, wherever you may be.
I am the lord of the Dance, said he;.
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be.
And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he.
I dance on a Friday when the sky turned black;
It's hard to dance with the devil on your back;
They buried my body and through I was gone;
But I am the dance and I shall go on.
Dance, then, wherever you may be.
I am the lord of the Dance, said he;.
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be.
And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he.
They cut me down and I leapt up high;
I am the life that'll never, never die.
I'll live in you if you'll live in me;
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.
Dancing, of course, is hardly respectable in Christian worship, despite its presence in other world religions. even so, it has never been wholly absent. "The Lord of the Dance" drew its inspiration from medieval carol, "Tomorrow Will Be My Dancing Day," and even the arid world of classical theology sometimes used the term perichoresis, meaning "dancing in a circle," to suggest the inner life of the Trinity.
The metaphor of a cosmic dance has much to recommend it to a twenty-first century mind. It can suggest the dynamic energies of an evolving universe, from the Big Bang on. It transcends the death of the individual and continues ever onward into the unimaginable future. It is charged with an irreducible vitality and joy, in every corner of reality. It can, if we will, fill the lives of every one of us.
I'll live in you of you'll live in me.
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.
(Editor's note: Sidney Carter b. 1915) is credited with this arrangment of "Lord of the Dance.")
Professor
Harcourt is the Charles A. Dana Professor of
English Emeritus at Ithaca College.
