As the pastor of a church that has a very broad range of people in it; from those who have followed Jesus for many years to those that don’t, Democrats, Republicans, Tea Partiers, those who drink, those who don’t, people who range on their views in all kinds of ways… Â I get asked a lot of questions. Â One that I have been asked from time to time is about yoga. Â Is it something that is a good idea for someone who is a follower of Christ to be involved in?
The concern, for those who have it, is that yoga is heavily utilised in the practice of Hinduism. Â The word yoga itself is from the Sanskrit word yuj, which means to unite or yoke, to connect. Â The goal is to connect the mind, body and spirit and was first used in Hindu texts in the fifth century BC.
The reason that I bring it up now is twofold. Â I have been asked about it over the past week about three or four times (much more than usual) and there is a good deal of interesting internet chatter about it. Â A friend of mine,
Then I saw that Relevant published a piece  entitlted
Personally I can connect with aspects of both takes on this.
I don’t believe that the world we live in is spiritually neutral. Â Not everything is automatically safe to engage in, just because we wish it were. Â As such, we need to reflect on what we are doing, what inputs we are allowing into our lives, and ultimately, what the results of those various inputs are. Â Paul’s letter to the church that was in Rome offers us some guidance here.
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12.2
Our inputs become our impacts. Â What we do deeply influences who we are.
It also seems that the yoga that most Americans interact with is less about participating in Hindu practices and more about the physcial movements and breathing that had historically been connected with those practices. Â A similar example would be how many Christians view the celebration of Christmas as having lost its religious underpinnings. Â Many, myself included, would say that most participate in the activities of Christmas and miss the meaning behind it.
Many Hindus feel the same about yoga.
I only tried something close to yoga once. Â A very well-intentioned co-worker, who was an instructor, walked us through some ofthemovements and breathing. Â At the end, we were lying on the floor with our eyes closed. Â As we were supposed to be focused on relaxing, another co-worker farted, a bunch of us started laughing and that was the end of the class.
Candice said...
1Jim, we must have been reading that article from Relevant at the exact same time. As someone who generally sees the world in black and white, this kind of gray area bothers me a lot. I went to Mark Driscoll’s church’s site and listened to the whole message from the Q&A session. He seems pretty legit; never stumbled over questions and backed almost all of them with a bunch of Scripture. Listening to the question about yoga in context with the other questions about demons made a whole lot of sense. We shouldn’t dable with demons is the main point. A point WELL made.
I know non-Christians, in my family and at VT, who yoga really has become a whole form of ungodly worshiping. These people usually go to very “authentic” type of yoga places; not War Memorial Gym. It seems like there honestly is a line here where sometimes yoga isn’t really yoga in the Hindu form and is harmless. A lot of mainstream places should seriously just call it stretching. Unforunately, from what I know about friends and family members, there is still a deeply Hindu inspired form circulating in America. That does trouble me… a lot.
10/26/10 2:25 PM | Comment Link
Becca said...
2First disclaimer, I am writing this without having read all the articles you have referenced (yes I am a little lazy at the moment). Two, I am definitely human, and I don’t believe I will ever have everything figured out, especially if God is the God I imagine him to be.
Gray areas are always challenging and annoying to me. I have lived most of my life from a black and white perspective. However, I have actually found that way of living to be damaging to both my faith and my experience of the world and God himself. I am not saying that things are never black and white, I feel it is quite obvious about God’s opinions on many things. However, as we all know the actual word yoga is not in the Bible, which I feel constitutes as a gray area.
My main feeling about yoga or similar practices:
it is what you make it. In other words, I feel it has more to do with where your heart is with God, and whether you use yoga as God worship, personal spiritual development, or demon/false gods worship.
I mean you can bake cookies to worship Satan, or plant a tree for him if you really want to. Yet, neither of those things in and of itself is “evil”, it is where your heart is and what your intent is that matters.
I respect the passion that Driscoll has for his teaching and that it is done out of love for God and his people. However, I disagree with his opinions and reasoning.
First of all, meditating on nature does not have to be a heathen practice! I often look at astronomy especially and I am constantly amazed by God and His greatness! I feel more inspired to worship God when I am hiking, studying science textbooks, or doing bioinformatics research than when I am sitting in a church pew (not dissing church just trying to make a point).
(“When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?”
Psalm 8:3-4)
I believe we can in a sense “become one” with nature and still be worshiping Christ! It doesn’t mean I am worshiping nature, but that I am enjoying what God has created for me!
I also don’t believe that God looks down on the maintenance of our spirit. I believe we can focus on our thoughts and clear our minds using mindfulness practices and it can open the door for God to work. Obviously, connecting with him in other ways (scripture reading, prayer etc.) are much more important, but self-reflection does not have to be about worshiping ourselves, but preparing our hearts and minds for change.
My concern if we conform to teachings of those such as Driscoll, is that we will become paranoid of spirituality in general, and our impressions of Christianity will drift towards a purely religious existence. Maybe this is undue concern, or maybe my definitions of spirituality and religion differ from others…
Sorry for the long post:P
10/26/10 5:14 PM | Comment Link
mo said...
3You’d probably have an easier time railing against the evils of farting than yoga. Maybe that’s a better place to start.
10/28/10 8:47 AM | Comment Link
jim said...
4Fair point Mo! 🙂
10/28/10 1:09 PM | Comment Link
jim said...
5No worries Becca, the long post was good. I enjoy hearing your thoughts. And I concur with many of them.
I totally agree that as I look up into the sky, I can just be lost in God’s creative power. Def agree.
I do, however, believe that there are things that are not spiritually neutral (IE the benefit or cost of them is determined by the person engaging in the behavior.) I would agree that baking cookies and planting trees would be neutral or good, but there are things that wouldn’t be. For instance, things that the scriptures list as wrong for us to do. I doubt God was just trying to come up with a list of things that would kill our buzz one day when he was in a bad mood. What I have found is that when I engage in those behaviors, there is a negative impact to my soul. In essence, I hurt myself and God is trying to guide me to avoid that. To summarize, there are some things that I can choose to do that will have an impact on me that I cannot choose. That isn’t the only reason that I want to obey him, but it is a key one.
So, if you acknowledge that some things aren’t morally neutral but rather morally negative, the question becomes, what are those things? What determines the category something falls in and are those categories fixed for everyone, across time?
This is a whole other dimension of the discussion that I think would be good to look at. While I don’t agree with aspects of Driscoll’s scriptural perspective, and I wouldn’t agree with the broadness of his perspective on yoga, I can agree with the essence of it.
I think he casts the entire lot into the negative category wrongly. It just seems like an overly strong response. But it serves as a good reminder that we need to be willing to reflect on the inputs we are allowing into our lives, and I think many do not. Certainly a practice that has been heavily utilized by a religion that, while it has aspects of great beauty in it, I strongly believe is ultimately wrongly directed, should be reflected on carefully. The more the spiritual dimension is utilized and focused on, the less comfortable I would be with regularly engaging it. Again, my experience, and the experiences of those I know that are both followers of Jesus and fans of yoga, is that it is the physical element that is the focus. I just feel that Driscoll doesn’t take that into account enough.
10/28/10 1:59 PM | Comment Link
jim said...
6Excellent point Candice, see my post to Becca above and let me know how that resonates with you. Peace, Jim
10/28/10 2:01 PM | Comment Link