Learning Scripture With Yoga

Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media.This week’s item is from The Los Angeles Times, February 22, 2006, with a headline:Class Combined Scripture With Yoga Based Moves.The following are excerpts:This is could be any yoga or stretch and toning class.The participants are on mats wearing layered tee-shirts and exercise pads.The lights are low and gentle guitar music plays.That is, until instructor Katherine Lynen guides the class a Pepperdine University into a cat pose, on their hands and knees with backs rounded, and says:Imagine God’s arms are around your waist pulling you up before reciting the first line of the 23^rd Psalm, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.This is FORM, Faith Ordered Rotational Movement, a fitness program Lynen created that integrates the most famous Psalms into a basic flexibility and strength training regime.He makes thee lie down in green pastures, she declares in the midst of a modified child’s pose kneeling, arms outstretched, body relaxed.Sink into this and seek an awareness, says Lynen to her 14 students, in quiet stillness you can really hear God’s voice.Lynen says the idea for form grew out of a combination of her Christianity, her background in dance, a desire for something more than she was getting in her regular exercise routine, and a Bible study as a way to deal with stress and a grueling workload.The Bible study wasn’t enough, and the exercise wasn’t enough on its own.This isn’t about the typical, “Let’s lose ten pounds” she says, this is about Christ realization and worshipping God, and if it’s ever different from that, I hope I’ll stop teaching it.

Tom:

Dave, in my opinion, okay, in my opinion---

Dave:

You’re entitled to that, Tom.

Tom:

Okay, we’ve got good news and bad news.The good news is, these people are getting some exercise.

Dave:

Stretching---they are not really exercises.

Tom:

Well, yeah, stretching is, especially for people our age, Dave, a good stretching would be good for us.

Dave:

All animals, when they wake up from a nap, stretch.So, we’ve got to realize how essential that is.I do a little stretching myself.

Tom:

So, that’s what I’m saying, that’s the good news part of it.

Dave:

Before I do my morning exercises I stretch the muscles, if I’ve got any left, that I’m going to exercise, I find it’s very helpful.

Tom:

That’s the good news part.

Dave:

Okay.

Tom:

But there’s more good news to this.There’s a sense among these people who participate, Christians primarily, that they are getting away, and they recognize yoga.Now Dave, I hesitate to say this, but I’ll explain it.You are working on a book---now folks, if you are listening to me, Dave is still working on it.The book is not available, but we’re looking forward to the book when you finish, and it’s called, Yoga, and the Body of Christ, in which you address yoga, not only as a so-called exercise, but really for what it is, a religious system.

Dave:

The subtitle, Tom, is rather clever, I didn’t come up with it.Yoga and he Body of Christ, is the title, subtitle, What Position Should the Church Take?

Tom:

Right.Now, along that line, so again the good news here is that this individual recognizes the difference between yoga and the Christianity that she’s involved in, so I think that’s good, but now the bad news.The bad news is, it seems to me, my opinion, that she’s imposing this exercise, or trying to incorporate it within her Christianity.When she says, Imagine God’s arms are around your waist pulling you up, I mean, you’ve got a problem there, Dave.

Dave:

We’ve got a real problem, that is occultism and people will try to imagine that they can feel God’s arms around them pulling them up, and that is not biblical.We have to stick to the Bible.

Tom:

Right.Again, they hear the reciting Psalms.What are we doing with the Psalms then, are we making it into a mantra, are we incorporating the Word, somehow the words now are efficacious, they are going to help us.See, these are areas, Dave, that I think some real discernment is needed.

Dave:

I wouldn’t say it takes too much discernment because---Tom, you are being kind---what do these poses have to do with the Psalms?David would really be upset to see what she is doing with the 23^rd Psalm, or other Psalms that he wrote.What does it have to do with the Bible?And notice what she says:This is about Christ’s realization.Now I don’t know exactly what that term means.If I were there I would like to ask her, Is this, we’re realizing that we’re becoming Christ-like, God-realization or self-realization of the yogi?And worshipping God?This is how we are going to worship?We are going to worship God throughout all eternity in heaven,--- and we’re to be going through these poses?Doesn’t it seem a bit odd that after all of these centuries nobody thought of this before---that this is really the way to do it---you would really enhance your worship.Tom, you were Catholic, it’s like rosary beads, it’s incense, whatever, somehow we are going to make this more meaningful, Psalms, by doing these poses?It’s not biblical, it has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit.They who worship God must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Tom:

Dave, you know, people sometimes ask me about yoga and about it being religion, and I use an analogy.You know, you’ve mentioned that I was a former Catholic.But what about in Catholicism if I developed an exercise system based on genuflecting, and that’s kneeling down before the altar, and so on, making the sign of the cross, and I put this into an exercise system.I mean, Catholics would laugh, I mean that would be a bad joke.

Dave:

But Tom, it wouldn’t be much worse than what they are doing.

Tom:

No, it isn’t.You see, and it’s worse here, let me quote her again.She says, this is the instructor, sink into this and feel an awareness, she says to her fourteen students, in quiet stillness you can really hear God’s voice.Dave, that is close to divination.

Dave:

Well. it’s occultism because it’s an attempt to hear from God apart from his Word.

Tom:

Thinking that the exercises and the stretching is going to put you into a state in which God is going to be able to speak to you more clearly.

Dave:

Tom, people are very good at imagining things.This is suggestion, it’s like hypnosis, and pretty soon you’ll have people thinking that they are hearing God’s voice.It’s a very dangerous practice.Tragically, because the lady probably is very sincere and means well.

Tom:

Seems that way.She says, And if it is ever different---I assume, from the truth, if it’s not the truth that she hopes that she will stop teaching it.Well, Dave, in my opinion, I guess in your opinion as well, we think that’s what she ought to do.

Dave:

She’s already reached that point.