Recently I was given the opportunity to read an article titled The Truth About Yoga by Holly Vicente Robaina on the ChristianityToday website.  I’ve linked the article at the end of this entry for although I will be referencing the article, this entry is not about the article but about my own study which began when I first started investigating Yoga and my recent review of that study.  If you would like to read the article first, just scroll to the bottom of this entry and read away!

Lest I be accused of trying to deceive anyone, allow me time to point out that I am LDS (you may be more familiar with the term Mormon).  That alone is enough for many Christians to immediately discount anything I might say.  Knowing that, I limited my study this time to the Bible only.  If you want further references from modern scripture, please feel free to email me.

Onward to the article and my own findings!  The article is about Laurette Willis, founder of PraiseMoves, and how Yoga destroyed her faith in Christ for 22 years.  The following is from the PraiseMoves website:

As a child growing up on Long Island, I became involved with yoga at the age of seven when my mother and I began watching a daily yoga exercise program on television. For the next 22 years I was heavily involved with yoga, metaphysics and the New Age movement until I came to the end of myself and surrendered my life to Jesus Christ in 1987.

. . . .

From experience I can say that yoga is a dangerous practice for the Christian and leads seekers away from God rather than to Him. You may say, "Well, I’m not doing any of the meditation stuff. I’m just following the exercises." It is impossible, however, to separate the subtleties of yoga the technique from yoga the religion. I know because I taught and practiced hatha yoga for years.

The article at ChristianityToday has this to say:

Throughout her childhood, Laurette’s family regularly attended church. "If someone had asked us, we would have said we were Christians," she says.

Put the two together and it is clear that Ms. Willis feels that Yoga robbed her of her faith at a young age and that it kept her blind to faith in Christ for 22 years.  After reading more of the arctile at ChristianityToday, I am of the opinion that Yoga was not the root cause of Ms. Willis’ lack of faith in Christ:

Throughout her childhood, Laurette’s family regularly attended church. "If someone had asked us, we would have said we were Christians," she says. "But we never heard the message of salvation at our church." Lacking knowledge about the Christian faith, Laurette’s mom found herself drawn to New Age practices, and began reading books by Nostradamus and Edgar Cayce (both claimed to have psychic abilities) and taking Laurette to an ashram, a Hindu yoga retreat.

As an adult, Laurette immersed herself in every New Age and metaphysical practice she came across: chanting, crystals, tarot cards, psychics, channeling spirits.

"I tried everything — Kabbalah, Universalism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism — because I was spiritually hungry," Laurette says. "I call the New Age movement ‘Burger King’ because it’s like the fast-food restaurant’s motto: ‘Have it your way.’ That’s what the New Age movement tries to do, to achieve God on its terms."

There was one thing Laurette wasn’t remotely interested in pursuing: Christianity.

I agree with Ms. Willis as to the cause of her spiritual hunger:  A missing faith in Christ.  I do not agree that Yoga was the root cause of that lack.  Part of the root cause, according to her own words, was that she "never heard the message of salvation at our church." The other part being that her mother seems to have taught her about everything except Christ.  Regardless, the crux of Ms. Willis’ statements is that Yoga and Christianity are opposed to each other to the extent that "yoga is a dangerous practice for the Christian and leads seekers away from God rather than to Him."  As the hour is late, I will break this study into a series.  Tomorrow I will cover the Yamas.

Namasté

ChristianityToday article.  If the article is no longer available but you would still like to read it in its entirety, please email me.  Link to PraiseMoves here.  Please note that at the time of this writing, the PraiseMoves site does not support browsers other than IE very well at all (some images won’t load except in IE).