‘Dancing With the Stars’ Contestant Faces Moral Conundrum Over Raunchy Dance: ‘I Don’t Want to Cross That Line’

Last week on Dancing With the Stars, one of the contestants, actor and singer Carlos PenaVega, tearfully told his story of how he became a Christian and then danced to Amazing Grace.

Yet this week, Carlos was asked to do a raunchy dance to “Pony” from the movie Magic Mike, which centers around male strippers.

The Blaze reports:

“The movie’s basically about dudes stripping,” PenaVega said in a video package that aired before his performance. “I’m a little freaked out.”

The “Big Time Rush” member said that he felt that the routine was a contradiction of the faith and values that he had highlighted on “Dancing With the Stars” just one week earlier.

“I’m not sure where I stand with all this, because I just came off like telling how God changed my life and this is like the complete opposite of that,” PenaVega said. “My faith means everything to me. I don’t want to cross that line to be raunchy, especially because that’s not who I am.”

The cameras also captured some moments of frustration between him and partner Witney Carson, with PenaVega continuing to explain that the dance was “uncomfortable” for him, as he struggled through practices.

Usually the producers and judges are pretty accommodating of people’s preferences, so this seems surprising.

It is a very tough line to know how to engage culture without fading into culture, especially as a Christian in the limelight.  I think it is a brave and important thing to boldly tell your story of redemption in Christ like Carlos did two weeks ago on the show.  But publicly telling your story comes with responsibility as well. When we hold ourselves out as belonging to Christ, everything about us changes and that impacts everything we do as well.

I’m glad to see that Carlos is wrestling through what it means to live out his faith on the show, and I hope he continues to do so as he stays in the competition.  He communicated his doubts in a way that was loving towards everyone and completely non-judgmental.

What do you think?  Did Carlos pull off the dance or did it go too far?

My book “For the Right Reasons” explores my faith and time on reality tv:

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