buddhagrrl

true, and i did neglect to mention that yoga was (and is) a deeply spiritual practice for me, but these christbots are tilting at windmills if they honestly think that their children doing yoga is going to undermine a family's religious instruction.

then again, that probably goes without saying...

also, the pastor in the story said he'd have no problem if the yoga was called "stretching and silence." because the name of the activity is obviously going to make the activity have a different interior effect?

Krieger

Yoga is a hell of a lot less religious than saying "under God" every day.

Toto

I have had some personal experience with this. I did yoga for some years at a YMCA. Because the YMCA was nominally Christian, the yoga that we did was stripped of all of Hindu rituals, with no chanting, no prayers to Patanjali. A similar sort of yoga had been introduced into the English public school system. It was only years later that I discovered that there were some overtly religious rituals that some yogis performed.

(And I also learned much later that this ancient yoga, alleged preserved by hermits in remote caves in Tibet, actually incorporated a lot of gymnastics from the physical education classes in the British Raj.)

But even then, there is no theology to yoga. "God" to the yogis is defined as the midline of your body, literally something within you. The essense of yoga is something you do, not something you believe.

The (minor) religious aspects of yoga are usually omitted in most American yoga classes in gyms or wherever, and are definitely not a necessary part of the system.

The Christians who object to yoga usually also object to martial arts classes. Not to mention Halloween and Harry Potter.

Cipher Girl

About 20 years ago, my husband and I rented out a house to a very weird Pentacostal family. At that time, I did some Yoga exercises every day and took a Yoga class at the college I was attending. The daughter of the couple saw me exercising (we lived next door) and asked what I was doing. I told her I was doing some Yoga stretching excercises.

Well, the reaction of the girl's mother later was priceless. They wanted out of their lease as they did not want to rent from "Satanists". It worked out fine for us as we had been wondering how to get them to leave, as we wanted to sell the house. I couldn't have planned it better.

ohwilleke

I think that the claim is quite legitimate. Yoga in its fullest sense, and also most martial arts, do have a religious component. Hell, my daughter goes to a pre-school which is basically an effort to evangalize through Yoga.

IMHO Yoga is pretty benign in the context of an overwhelmingly Christian country. But, Yoga certainly can have a religous component, which, if included in a public school curricula, is appropriate for a Christian to complain about. Indeed, success once or twice with Yoga may remind Christians why the 1st amendment is a good idea.

Of particular legitimate concern is that a Yoga class would be serving as an introductory teaser and threshold breaker, to get kids into a belief system associated with Yoga, since they've already gotten their feet wet. It would be a bit like having kids say the Lord's Prayer (which is itself quite non-denominational and whose text is not even expressly Christian) in a chapel before naptime or recess, in an effort get them to say what the heck, I've already done Christian prayer, I may as well check it out.

I think that there are real questions of fact over whether this particular "Yoga" program is really just a bunch of stretching exercises, or in fact goes beyond that. But, they are certainly fair questions to raise on their face.

DarkBronzePlant

Pretyt much all yoga courses in the U.S. today encompass the best of the "monastic meditation and exercise techniques as well" and leave any religious aspects out entirely.

Now if we could just do the same with Christianity, we'd be set!

beoba

What "monastic meditation and exercise techniques" would Christianity have to offer? Aside from a torture chamber rack, of course.

Toto

Christian monks did practice some meditation, although Christians who want to meditate usually have to turn to other more evolved spiritual traditions. But they don't seem to have exercised.

Of course, those monks also practiced the distillation of alcoholic spirits. Perhaps if Christianity confined itself to that practice and left out the religious aspects, its reputation would improve (in this forum, at least).

Cheers.

Toto

bonduca

Agnostic or atheist.

never been there

I took Yoga at community college and the teacher included the religious side for the sake of context and cultural awareness. That said, the religion is more of the 'drop of water in the ocean' type. This can be union with Atman if that's your view or it could be realizing your connection with the living world if you're an ecologist. You could take it in a Christian way if you wanted.

For me, it provided a spiritual view completely compatible with atheism. For Christians, it could be threatening to learn that you don't have to be so damn uptight.