Yoga “Unchristian”

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/06/nippers_yoga_ban/

You what?

Okay, it does show a suprising level of knowledge about the origins of Yoga, and the way it was originally used to focus the mind for a spirituality that isn’t Christianity, but… Did I miss something?

It’s not like they were attempting to practice Satanism! I can understand that the Church hall should be used for “proper” activities. The headlines if it weren’t would be far more damaging, the press enjoy destroying anything that could even possibly aspire to use the word “established” in order to grab headlines, but to bad Yoga Classess?

A dear friend of ours from Australia has to use Yoga to ease her muscles due to a physical problem. Does that mean she’s not a Christian? (well, okay, in this case I’m not quite sure where she’d put herself with that label…), but you get my drift.

It’s the kind of thing that makes people think that the Church really has lost touch, and I’m afraid to say that in this case, it probably has. Perhaps if there had been a futher discussion, perhaps if the lady in question had been interviewied and did indeed plan to run full Yogic Meditation, along with the teaching of of Hindu, then yes, I would say that the Vicar had a point (it would be like asking to run a christian prayer meating in a Mandir (a Hindu temple). Yoga in and of it’self is not a religion. Infact a quick check on the net will proove that. Yes it does have roots inside the Hindu religion, but that doesn’t mean that the simple art of body meditation isn’t usefull in other venues. Indeed, there are a few “Christian Yoga” Movements. Admittedly, the only one I could find was based in the US, but I still don’t see where the problem is.

This narrow-mindedness of the Church is what’s got it into it’s current state of crisis. There are not enough people attending, because currently the only major news articles that are getting out there are those that seem to show the old-style narrow-minded views. I think this is a real shame, (of course I would ! 🙂 ). There are some new-style Vicars comming through now, who are busy shaking things up, and changing the way people think about JC. I am, of course, hoping to become one of those. The Vicar of Llantrisant has done wonders, and it’s a shame that the news-grabbing headlines make the rest of us look like raving fundies!

SK