Yoga is unchristian, says Baptist leader
Terming the popular and growing practice of yoga "a symptom of our postmodern spiritual confusion"—a confusion that "to our shame . . . reaches into the church"—Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, argued in a September 20 blog that "yoga begins and ends with an understanding of the body that is, to say the very least, at odds with the Christian understanding."
Mohler said he disagrees with those who think that yoga as a form of exercise or meditation can be separated from its roots in Hindu mysticism. "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," Mohler said. "Believers are called to meditate upon the Word of God, . . . not to meditate by means of incomprehensible syllables."
Nicole Soteropoulos, a yoga teacher in Louisville, invited Mohler to attend one of her classes. But she called his viewpoint "ignorant" and "based on fear." Maintaining that yoga is "not based on a religion," she said it's "an exercise, health and wellness system . . . so old that it belongs to humanity."
