In a widely circulated blog last week, Reverend Albert Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, took aim at yoga. "When Christians practice yoga," he wrote, "they must either deny the reality of what yoga represents or fail to see the contradictions between their Christian commitments and their embrace of yoga." The essay got attention, but it's really just the latest variation of an old story. In fact, Mohler is practically ecumenical when compared to some of his predecessors.
Conservative Christians have been issuing lurid warnings about contamination from the East for more than a century. Back in the 1890s, Swami Vivekananda, the first Hindu leader to make a splash in the U.S., was mercilessly assailed on his Midwestern speaking tour. In newspaper exchanges that would have made for great TV had the technology existed, the erudite Vivekananda gave as good as he got, blasting Christian arrogance and winning the hearts and minds of open-minded Americans in the process. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the gurus and yoga masters who trickled into the West were greeted with alarm by xenophobes and self-appointed defenders of womanhood. Articles like "American Women Going after Heathen Gods" stoked fears of innocent maidens being seduced by dark-skinned pagans. In 1911 a broadside titled "The Heathen Invasion" claimed that yoga "leads to domestic infelicity, and insanity and death." Come the late 1960s and early 1970s, a tidal wave of popular gurus attracted followers and were accused of doing the Devil's work. In 1975, for instance, when Maharishi Mahesh Yogi appeared on Merv Griffin's talk show (the Oprah of its day), protesters outside the studio carried signs like, "Jesus Is the Lord, Not Maharishi."
Now the anxiety is directed at what has aptly been called modern postural yoga. Fifteen to 20 million Americans attend yoga classes each year, and naturally most of them are from Christian backgrounds. On top of that, several varieties of Christian Yoga have cropped up. This has caused consternation and sometimes alarm among certain clerics; Reverend Mohler apparently is one of them.
I can't help thinking: What are they afraid of? Are they that insecure? Do they think so little of their flock as to fear that they'll convert to Hinduism because they chant some Sanskrit mantras, or say "Namaste" instead of goodnight, or hear some tidbits of Vedic philosophy while stretching? Non-Christians absorb through osmosis countless doses of Christian theology just by living in America. We sing Christmas carols like they're pop tunes. Yet, despite the relentless exposure, there is no sign of mass conversion. One is tempted to tell worried Christians to calm down with a few forward bends and some alternate nostril breathing.
What makes the fear of stealth Hinduism especially bizarre is that the ancient tradition has never even entertained the concept of conversion. Every Indian teacher who made a mark in America has presented his or her teachings as more of a spiritual science than a religion -- something students can try on for size and adapt to their own lives as they see fit, whether for secular self-improvement or as a spiritual practice that need not interfere with their own religions. This is, of course, especially true of contemporary yoga, which most students see as a fitness or wellness regimen and many find compatible with their various spiritual orientations.
Based on my research for my book, American Veda, the Christians and Jews who have leaped body and soul into Hinduism or Buddhism were not seduced away from their ancestral religions; they were already out the door and searching for alternatives. In fact, there is a far more common trajectory among alienated seekers: they study Eastern ideas and then rethink, reinterpret and reevaluate their own religions, and many of them return to active participation on their own terms. The history of Americans whose Christianity was broadened and deepened by exposure to Hinduism goes back to the days of Emerson and Thoreau and has continued into modern times with millions of people, including leading thinkers such as Joseph Campbell, a lifelong Catholic, and Huston Smith, the son of Methodist missionaries. In fact, the current revival of Christian and Jewish mystical practices was triggered by the popularity of Eastern meditation forms in the 1970s. (Centering Prayer is probably the best-known example of that phenomenon.)
This should comfort most Christians, although it might alarm fundamentalists all the more. The truth is, Christians who believe that theirs is the one true religion, that Jesus is the one and only savior of all humankind and that the Bible is to be taken literally as God's only revealed word, will always feel threatened by a spiritual tradition that recognizes many pathways to the divine and many ways to engage in any particular religion. Old-fashioned religious supremacists are under threat not from yoga but from the currents of history itself. Reverend Mohler and his brethren may lament that, but those of us who welcome the rise of genuine pluralism and the advent of a rational spirituality can only say Amen.
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Philip Goldberg: America the Mystical: Oh Beautiful for Spacious Minds
Health - Should Christians Do Yoga?
Yes to Yoga | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical ...
Yoga and Christianity: Are They Compatible? - Probe Ministries
Yoga at its best is a philosophical system which is thought to lead to self-realization. For as long as it has existed, there have been no religious incantations associated with the practice, nor does it propagate the worship of any one supreme figure. It is infact philosophical and not iconic in any way.
Read more at http://www.divinewellness.com/yoga-Blog/172/religion-and-yoga.htm
At one time in India, most women were destined to die on their husband's funeral pyre. Incredibly enough, Britain's political leadership was reluctant to outlaw the practice. Fortunately for India, however, England's Christian missionaries succeeded in pushing the issue, effectively ending an unspeakably barbaric practice by anyone's definition.
In short, it is only with a genuine, gut-level wisdom and compassion that one religious culture can actively benefit another.
Right....at the same time, slavery was so rampant in Christian America and the rest of the "civilized" world. Widow burning affected only certain people. It was not practiced by everyone and the decision was based on what the local community thought. However, slavery was a LAW based on christianity that basically destroyed the soul of generation after generation of blacks.
Gotta love the hypocrisy of the christians.
Slavery and its trade tainted the history of every country, every continent that took part. It has never had anything whatsoever to do with Christianity. In Europe as in the USA, Christian values, Christian leadership pushed for its abolition.
Oh and by the way, speaking as a Christian I think yoga postures are a great. I also hope to see more meditation practices -- grown and kept entirely within the purely Biblical context of Christianity.
Pants on girls. never! Seeing beautiful swinging hips would lead all the boys in sin, those young butts that seem to say, 'do me, do me, do me" with each swing.
Do you see a pattern here?
Mohler is not this type of Christian.
JDLamps, a liberated Christian.
As Christians, I would ask that we should meditate on the Scriptures. It is an important Christian discipline that, if done properly, would make Yoga unnecessary. I practice Christian meditation and prayer everyday. It's a wonderful practice.
Being raised in a Christian household doesn't automatically make you a christian. The brainwashing just doesn't take on those of us that can reason at an early age.
All I can think of is that churches are scared that they will lose followers and use fear tactics to keep people in line. Demon is not controlling you, organized religion is. Do yourself a favor and set yourself free!!
I will meditate on Adi Shankara and Ramanuja's ideas.
From Science I get this:
1) Knowledge is organization of energy,
2) Intelligence is energy acting upon organized energy, with outcome of set energy,
3) Power is Energy,
4) God's (or Soul's) existence or creations require energy, and
5) Einstein shows energy is neither creatable nor destructible.
Energy evolves it's attributes, but can't create itself, destroy itself, or come from nothing. Big Bang, Universe, time, space, DNA, intelligence, Creator, creation? All expressions of energy. We, our thoughts, conscience, pure energy. Energy is. Never dies.
If God is, if Soul is, if Temptation is, it is just energy, nothing more than the energy within our skulls. Energy's worshiped by the primitive. Man has worshiped Fire, Sun, Power and even Satan. Call it divine if you wish, but we control our minds and there is no evidence of the reality of deities or souls. Good and evil are just the morality we establish.
But is it logical for energy to create un-creatable, indestructible energy? Should we lie, fabricate entities to favor us, save us from death and demons? Religion fails without this lie, indoctrination. Why not just promote the Science of Philosophy like Aristotle? Why promote religion?
Infact the thought is soul cannot be destroyed and creation in Hinduism means not a separate event where God said "Let there be light". In fact, If you read Vedas, the creation says man and animals are made from God himself. They are part of him. And that's why Monism (God and soul are same) is a big part of the religion. Thats why there is reincarnation, which means the soul which became part of the universe will be recreated again using the same elements.
I think The God element has been included to make people listen and understand which in itself is ironical in Hinduism, as Hinduism is a thought process and way of life than a revealed religion. God is a higher power and consciousness in Hinduism.