Yoga: the Poses and Postures
It's not a new debate, but one that I keep an on-going dialogue with: can Christians practice/participate in yoga?
I recently listened to John Piper's "Ask Pastor John" segment from last year on this topic. His response is a measured "No." Some of the comments retorted that yoga is "just exercise" in the U.S., if not the West. The thought on yoga ranges from dangerous idolatrous practice to cheery secularization, to adapting it to Christian meditation.
Whatever it is, it is not inert. If we are going to plunder the Egyptians, we must take and repurpose carefully. I have the most problem with the last approach, of attempting to baptize yogic discipline with superimposed Christian prayer and Bible reading. Christian mediation is not like Buddhist or Hindu meditation. It has a different purpose: the focused contemplation on Yahweh and His glory. And it has a different method, which we have pretty well mapped out for us: devoted reading of the Scriptures, fasting, prayer, singing, and the sacraments. The postures of worship in the presence of God are likewise illustrated: standing or prostrate. Sitting is the posture of teaching. We have only a couple examples of dancing.
As to "just exercise", the poses (at least some of them) honor Hindu gods and harken to their avatars. And if yoga was treated as just exercise a decade or two ago, it has become a centerpiece in the "self-care", "self-love" movement today. Just as yoga has proved adaptable to both Hinduism and Buddhism, it has proved adaptable to our masturbatory humanism.
Many of the poses are named after animals. Who made those animals in the first place? Certainly not those many-armed statues. Once you've learned poses like "cat," "cow," "downward dog," and "upward dog," you'll notice that cats and dogs actually do all those stretches and Yahweh taught them to do so. The poses ultimately come from observing God's common grace in Creation. The sequences, likewise, are a gift of common grace. I love stretching, but the sequences strengthen and stretch the whole body in a way that the isolated stretches taught in PE don't.
Although I would argue that Christian meditation is confined to a few explicitly endorsed disciplines, we are all also exhorted to do all the glory of God. Thus we can celebrate the wisdom God has given to His creatures and imitate it. And we can learn from the beasts and birds without reducing ourselves to animals. Solomon went to the ant without giving up his humanity; rather what he gathered from watching her enhanced his humanity. (And Tolkien again: the elves study creation to learn about their place in the world and to celebrate the wisdom of the Creator.)
We can engage with the poses and sequences of yoga cautiously and carefully -- giving thanks to God for creating our bodies, the birds and fish and other beings that the postures nod to, and the people who observed those works of God although they exchanged worship of the Creator for worship of the creation.
Aside: there are a couple poses with names like "sun god" and "moon goddess." These are squats like "horse pose" in Kung Fu with arm variations. If you do any kind of physical exercise, you probably already have squats incorporated. This diminishes the meaning of the postures themselves in my mind even though their names might seem threatening.
TLDR: yoga must be approached thoughtfully and carefully. But it can be approached. I'm far more on Piper's side than those who rush in thoughtlessly.
I recently listened to John Piper's "Ask Pastor John" segment from last year on this topic. His response is a measured "No." Some of the comments retorted that yoga is "just exercise" in the U.S., if not the West. The thought on yoga ranges from dangerous idolatrous practice to cheery secularization, to adapting it to Christian meditation.
Whatever it is, it is not inert. If we are going to plunder the Egyptians, we must take and repurpose carefully. I have the most problem with the last approach, of attempting to baptize yogic discipline with superimposed Christian prayer and Bible reading. Christian mediation is not like Buddhist or Hindu meditation. It has a different purpose: the focused contemplation on Yahweh and His glory. And it has a different method, which we have pretty well mapped out for us: devoted reading of the Scriptures, fasting, prayer, singing, and the sacraments. The postures of worship in the presence of God are likewise illustrated: standing or prostrate. Sitting is the posture of teaching. We have only a couple examples of dancing.
As to "just exercise", the poses (at least some of them) honor Hindu gods and harken to their avatars. And if yoga was treated as just exercise a decade or two ago, it has become a centerpiece in the "self-care", "self-love" movement today. Just as yoga has proved adaptable to both Hinduism and Buddhism, it has proved adaptable to our masturbatory humanism.
Many of the poses are named after animals. Who made those animals in the first place? Certainly not those many-armed statues. Once you've learned poses like "cat," "cow," "downward dog," and "upward dog," you'll notice that cats and dogs actually do all those stretches and Yahweh taught them to do so. The poses ultimately come from observing God's common grace in Creation. The sequences, likewise, are a gift of common grace. I love stretching, but the sequences strengthen and stretch the whole body in a way that the isolated stretches taught in PE don't.
Although I would argue that Christian meditation is confined to a few explicitly endorsed disciplines, we are all also exhorted to do all the glory of God. Thus we can celebrate the wisdom God has given to His creatures and imitate it. And we can learn from the beasts and birds without reducing ourselves to animals. Solomon went to the ant without giving up his humanity; rather what he gathered from watching her enhanced his humanity. (And Tolkien again: the elves study creation to learn about their place in the world and to celebrate the wisdom of the Creator.)
We can engage with the poses and sequences of yoga cautiously and carefully -- giving thanks to God for creating our bodies, the birds and fish and other beings that the postures nod to, and the people who observed those works of God although they exchanged worship of the Creator for worship of the creation.
Aside: there are a couple poses with names like "sun god" and "moon goddess." These are squats like "horse pose" in Kung Fu with arm variations. If you do any kind of physical exercise, you probably already have squats incorporated. This diminishes the meaning of the postures themselves in my mind even though their names might seem threatening.
TLDR: yoga must be approached thoughtfully and carefully. But it can be approached. I'm far more on Piper's side than those who rush in thoughtlessly.
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