By: Don Caldwell
Do the ends justify the means?
Excerpts italicized:
A Southern Baptist leader who is calling for Christians to avoid yoga and its spiritual attachments is getting plenty of pushback from enthusiasts who defend the ancient practice.
Southern Baptist Seminary President Albert Mohler says the stretching and meditative discipline derived from Eastern religions is not a Christian pathway to God.
Mohler said he objects to "the idea that the body is a vehicle for reaching consciousness with the divine."
"That's just not Christianity," Mohler told The Associated Press.
"I'm really surprised by the depth of the commitment to yoga found on the part of many who identify as Christians," Mohler said.
Yoga fans say their numbers have been growing in the U.S. A 2008 study by the Yoga Journal put the number at 15.8 million, or nearly 7 percent of adults. About 6.7 percent of American adults are Southern Baptists, according to a 2007 survey by the Pew Research Center Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Mohler argued in his online essay last month that Christians who practice yoga "must either deny the reality of what yoga represents or fail to see the contradictions between their Christian commitments and their embrace of yoga."
Other Christian leaders have said practicing yoga is incompatible with the teachings of Jesus. Pat Robertson has called the chanting and other spiritual components that go along with yoga "really spooky." California megachurch pastor John MacArthur called yoga a "false religion." Muslim clerics have banned Muslims from practicing yoga in Egypt, Malaysia and Indonesia, citing similar concerns.
Yoga proponents say the wide-ranging discipline, which originated in India, offers physical and mental healing through stretching poses and concentration.
Many may approach yoga with good / innocent intentions, but when the core philosophies behind yoga conflict with Christianity, is it still okay to participate? Assuming that you believe that you will not be influenced by it, what type of example are you setting for others? Is your acceptance with yoga going to inadvertently lead others to yoga and / or away from God? If, as some believe, you could mix Christianity and yoga together (which I would believe to be akin to playing with fire), why couldn’t you try to do the same thing with other forms of spirituality (i.e. Wicca)?
(ORIGINAL LINK) Southern Baptist leader on yoga: Not Christianity - Yahoo! News
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