Yoga has been a popular subject for Christians in the blogosphere over the past year or so. In the related posts below, you can see I’ve linked and written about it before.
The latest blog comes from Mark Driscoll. Like him or not, he gives a very detailed account of the issue here. Having only participated in a yoga class once, I really can’t speak as an expert on this topic. However, when Al Mohler and now Mark Driscoll write about this, they seem to dismiss the idea of divorcing the spiritual aspects of yoga from the physical ones. I’ve talked with people who say they have done a “version” of Yoga where there wasn’t any spiritual focus. Maybe there was and it was so subtle that they missed it–I don’t know. What do you guys think?
Below are also some excerpts from Driscoll’s blog. Agree or disagree?
As stated earlier, there is a growing movement of Christians who are engaging in “Holy Yoga,” claiming that you can practice yoga and be a Christian as long as you divorce the practice of yoga from the teachings of yoga. In this last section, I’ll briefly consider whether there can truly be such a thing as Christian yoga.
Often at Mars Hill Church, I use a simple matrix to help my congregation discern how to engage culture: receive, reject, or redeem. (I wrote a lengthy post on this for theresurgence.com, “Why Christians Go Postal Over Facebook, Jay-Z, Yoga, Avatar, and Culture in General,” which I encourage you to read.)
Receive: There are things in culture that are part of God’s common grace to all people that a Christian can simply receive. This is why, for example, I am typing on a Mac and am going to post this article on the Internet without searching for an expressly Christian computer or communication format.
Reject: There are things in culture that are sinful and not beneficial. One example is drunkenness, which has no redeeming value and must be rejected by a Christian.
Redeem: There are things in culture that are not bad in and of themselves, but can be used in a sinful manner and therefore need to be redeemed by God’s people. An example that has resulted in a great deal of media attention is sexual pleasure. God made our bodies for, among other purposes, sexual pleasure. And, although many have sinned sexually, as Christians we should redeem this great gift and all its joys in the context of marriage.
So the question when it comes to yoga is, should it be received, rejected, or redeemed?
As I’ve explained in this post, yoga is a religious philosophy that is in direct opposition to Christianity. Thus, in its true form, yoga cannot be simply received by any Christian in good conscious. To do so would be to reject the truths of Scripture and thus Jesus himself.
Thinking through whether a Christian can redeem yoga becomes murky. As I alluded to earlier, going to a yoga studio to practice yoga as a Christian is a bit like going into a mosque to practice Islam as a Christian. They don’t go together. Complicating the issue even more is that, as explained above, yoga is often not overt in its teachings but rather weaves them through seemingly harmless practices such as stretching. Without a discerning spirit, one can find oneself naively participating in spiritual activities that are not Christian.
My advice is to not attempt to redeem yoga properly understood, as it is a system of belief that is unchristian, against Scripture, and thus demonic in nature. You cannot redeem such a thing.
