You might have recently seen a story on CNN about an unnamed minister in an unnamed Atlanta Baptist church who thinks yoga can actually further Christian faith and practice.  That was I.  I guess free publicity about Northside Drive Baptist Church is not too much to ask of CNN Broadcasting? This story was mentioned on the news from a recent Atlanta Journal Constitution column responding to Albert Mohler's article on his website referring to yoga as an un-Christian activity. Of course, many columnists, yoga teachers, and religious leaders spoke against this notion.  The AJC felt my view, as a Baptist minister whose church actively promotes and practices yoga, would be relevant to the column.

       My wife, Amanda, is a Certified Yoga Instructor and teaches yoga at Northside Drive. I also practice yoga as well.  Of course my views are different than Al Mohler's in his recently posted blog, "The Subtle Body - Should Christians Practice Yoga?"  In this post, Mohler believes that Christians who practice yoga fail to see the contradictions between their Christian commitments and their embrace of yoga.  This widespread and all too common judgment regarding yoga as a pagan religion involving weird sex while using the body and mind, instead of Holy Scripture, to encounter the divine is dripping with popular misinformation.

       Yoga is not a religion; it is a philosophy.  It is a physiological and psychological practice. Often times, people assume that yoga is a religion because it grew up along side Hinduism and Buddhism and because many Hindus and Buddhists practice yoga.  Any religious or non-religious person can practice the philosophy of yoga: Christians, Jews, Muslims, Agnostics, and Atheists. America is a melting pot of ethnicities, religions and cultures.  It is impossible to be a Christian in America without absorbing other ideas just as those of other religions and philosophies absorb Christian ideas.

       In his blog post, Mohler states, "Yoga begins and ends with an understanding of the body that is, to say the very least, at odds with the Christian understanding. Christians are not called to empty the mind or to see the human body as a means of connecting to and coming to know the divine. Believers are called to meditate upon the Word of God---an external Word that comes to us by divine revelation---not to meditate by means of incomprehensible syllables."

       I believe our bodies and our minds can be vehicles for encountering God.  Of course they can also hinder us from communing with God as responsively and passionately as we should.  If yoga helps to "empty" the mind long enough to let in a piece of the Divine, I think it can be a benefit to the practitioner and humanity.  Christ went up into the mountains to pray; Jesus was on his knees and face in the Garden of Gethsemane; contemporary Christians sway, dance, and sing to music; pious prayers are spoken with the intention of the body being in position of reverence and release.  As beings created in the image of God, we can and should use our bodies and our minds to draw closer to the Divine.

       As active Christians, it is important for us to always stretch our faith.  I would remind Mohler and all Christians to not be afraid of yoga. I think our Christian faith is strong and flexible enough to handle a little stretching and meditating.  Don't you?