Albert Mohler wrote an article about whether or not [his type of] Christians should practice yoga. His conclusion was not surprising, since [his style of] Christianity is radically challenged by the pluralistic ethos of the global culture today. As a representative of sequestered Christianity he concluded that yoga is not an appropriate practice for those wishing to maintain [his particular brand of] a Christian identity.
Again, no big surprise. And I'm doubtful that his article will do much to dissuade committed yoga practitioners, even Christian ones. Most practitioners are convinced of the sanctity of yoga because it functions. They don't need approval from the Christian aristocracy. Yoga is fine, and Mohler is fighting a losing battle (against a bunch of fit pacifists) to suggest otherwise.
I'm more concerned with implications that Mohler made about core Christian teaching and his apparent ignorance of traditional Christian practices. His audience has shallow roots in the world of yoga, but plenty of Christians would have heeded his words that:
"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. Believers are called to meditate upon the Word of God — an external Word that comes to us by divine revelation — not to meditate by means of incomprehensible syllables."
Mohler's limited and noxious understanding of yoga aside, he's denying something key to Christianity here. And as a current student of the early church fathers I can be quite certain that, though they may concur that yoga is eccentric, they would rip Mohler's anti-body sentiments into tiny shreds and scatter them over a Docetistic grave. Christianity is all about the body.
As a progressive Christian who is fully confident that he's got nothing on yoga I'm willing to sidestep his offensive and untoward attitude about it. But don't mess with the incarnation.
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