[Editorial Note: This post appeared on my other blog on 11/4/11. I'm just moving it over here to put all posts that are a good fit for this blog in one place.]
This is a brief and admittedly not very informed response to Mark Driscoll's recent post Christian Yoga? It's a Stretch. [Note: as of 5/16/16, this link does no longer takes you to the article in question.] To start with I would like to say that the article appeared to be well researched and was informative and interesting to read. To his credit, Mark generally does a great job in general of researching a topic before posting about it. The result is a thought-provoking and challenging post that is well worth reading.
Before continuing I should say that I have no experience with yoga whatsoever. I am not in a position to judge how well it helps some people or whether it could possibly help me. Certainly it doesn't seem that hard to survive without it and there are other avenues to relieve tension and stress. I wonder what Mark would have to say about some of the Far-Eastern martial arts.
Mark concludes that Yoga "as defined here" (which is essentially a description of how it defines itself) should be rejected outright. This sounds really wishy-washy but I still have to wonder if it's possible to agree with that, but maybe still not reject yoga, with certain qualifiers. I agree in the sense that his case is well-stated, coherent, and Biblically grounded. Yet before reaching the "reject" conclusion I think we would do well to address a few more general questions applied to this topic, such as:
Should Christians who "unwittingly" participate in idolatry be judged differently than those who do on purpose? (And, once you have read Mark's post describing what it really is, are you then without excuse?)
Is there anything God can't redeem? If yoga is really that useful is it worth exploring a Christian alternative to it?
Titus 1:15 (an oft-neglected passage) reads, "To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled an unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both there mind and their conscience is defiled." To what degree is this a license to participate in debatable activities such as not-deliberately-idol-worshiping yoga? Does Mark's position come too close to legalism?
In a world of anything-goes postmodernism I appreciate Mark sticking to his guns on this topic, and defining specifically what it is, and what's wrong with it. Although I don't agree with Mark on everything, I may conclude in this case that he is correct, but in the meantime I think a little further discussion wouldn't hurt. I would love to hear your thoughts.
Oh and you're welcome for getting that song stuck in your head.
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