A Southern Baptist church leader said recently that Christians should not practice yoga, should not do the stretching exercises of yoga, and should not replace the spiritual aspect of yoga with Christian thought and scripture.
Albert Mohler, Southern Baptist Seminary president, warned Christians in a recent piece he wrote in the Christian Post that the meditation and stretching components of yoga are one and the same.
In his essay Mohler wrote, “Most seem unaware that yoga cannot be neatly separated into physical and spiritual dimensions. The physical is the spiritual in yoga, and the exercises and disciplines of yoga are meant to connect with the divine.”
Mohler cited Douglas R. Groothuis, a professor at Denver Seminary and a New Age specialist who said, “All forms of yoga involve occult assumptions, even hatha yoga, which is often presented as a merely physical discipline.”
Mohler said the physical postures of yoga are “teaching postures with a spiritual purpose.” He wrote in the Christian Post, “If you have to meditate intensely in order to achieve or to maintain a physical posture, it is no longer merely a physical posture.”
Noting that yoga in India is a product of syncretism, Mohler stated in his Christian Post article that in the U.S. that same syncretism has evolved. He called it a symptom of “postmodern spiritual confusion” that has infiltrated the church.
According to Mohler, Christians who practice yoga are either in denial about its roots, or do not know that it contradicts Christianity. Noting that his Christian Post article got hefty feedback, Mohler told the AP, “I’m really surprised by the depth of the commitment to yoga found on the part of many who identify as Christians.”
Other Christians who agree with Mohler are Pat Robertson who objected to the chants and spiritual components, and Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church called it a “false religion.” Muslim clerics from Malaysia, Indonesia and Egypt have banned yoga, the AP said.
Not in agreement
Writer Agnieszka Tennant said in an essay in Christianity Today that while she is perfectly aware of yoga’s Hindu roots and knows that hard-core yogis see it as a religious ritual, “Hindu gods don’t make it onto my mat.”
Tennant wrote in Christianity Today that God “created the common graces of oxygen, stretching, flexibility, breathing and soothing music.” When she does the deep breathing, she dwells on how God is “omnipresent and as necessary as the air.”
Comparing yoga to meat offered to idols, she said Paul wrote in Corinthians that eating meat offered to idols is okay, but Paul also said that others are “so accustomed to idols that when they eat such food they think of it as having been sacrificed to an idol, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled.”
Laurette Willis, a former yoga instructor, said the breathing techniques can open the door to psychic experiences, something Mohler also believes. Willis said yoga led her to the New Age, then depression and alcoholism, Kyria reported.
Now a Christian, Willis runs PraiseMoves, which Mohler would likely object to, as it blends the health benefits of yoga with a Christian viewpoint and substitutes biblical names for the poses, according to Kyria.
Stephanie Dillon, owner of PM Yoga, injects her Christian faith and mentions Jesus in her sessions. She said that yoga actually renewed her faith and brought her back to church. She felt Mohler’s viewpoint is legalistic, while her faith is primarily based on a personal relationship with Jesus, the AP said.
A 2008 study in the Yoga Journal said that seven percent of adults in the U.S. practice yoga. That is a larger percentage than the number of Southern Baptists in the U.S., which a 2007 Pew Research Center survey said was 6.7 percent, the AP reported.
