During a focus group discussion I attended at Sunset last month, an older gal made the comment that "most of the women she knows are doing Yoga", and that many of them joined the New Age movement and have shunned Christianity.
Thinking about this afterwards, I was struck with the thought... the inspiration, that it didn't have to be that way. Sure, Yoga and meditation have their roots in Hinduism. But please tell me why Yoga, or quiet reflection, or meditative exercises can't be blended with a focus on becoming closer to Jesus. I keep coming back to a passage I recently came across.
Psalm 46:10
Be still, and know that I am God.
In this crazy, hectic, and often times insane world, I find myself very close to God when I can quiet the static, silence the rush of life, and simply allow my mind, and my soul to just “be”.
In my opinion, Yoga and mediation are fantastic ways to open a prayer channel.. to focus on those things God wants me to strive towards.
So I started looking around the Net. As it turns out there is a new movement of Christ-centered Yoga that has popped up. Here’s an interesting article describing the practice:
http://www.hvk.org/articles/0703/169.html
As you might have noticed, when Christ and Yoga are used together, controversy is sure to follow. Here are several divergent viewpoints around Christ-centered Yoga that come at it from different perspectives.
In this article from the Christian Worldview Network, the author warns that mixing Yoga and Christ is a dangerous way to become ensnarled in Eastern mysticism, and a road towards abandoning authentic Christianity. In this article, a Hindu worries that an ancient practice of their religion is being stolen away by Christians and other groups. Finally, in this piece published on the radical Leftist site, Indymedia, the author makes wild and vicious claims that Yoga will cause the average Christian to “lose control” of their facilities because of the male/female connection that Yoga centers on. Interesting stuff.
My own opinion is that someone who is new or immature to their spiritual awakening, or to taking matters of spirit seriously, who wants to take a yoga or a mediation class, wonders into a world that is often times hostile to traditional (what they might call Conservative) ways of worshipping God. A group-think, “us versus them” mentality often results, and someone who very easily could have taken Jesus seriously is lost to a world of false Gods, Mother-Earths, Gaias, Witch-craft, or worse. Once in this world, many of these people never return to the world of Jesus as Lord, and I’ll bet many of them sadly become embittered in their elder years.
As Sunset strives to find new ways of reaching the Portland community, a Christ-centered Yoga class is a great way to meet the community head on, and offer a service that will, hopefully, lead someone towards an authentic relationship with our Lord Jesus, and away from the false-Gods of the New Age world.
I’m very curious to gather the opinions of our church body at Sunset, or anyone else as to whether this idea has merit, and is worth pursuing.
