Long controversial in some Christian circles, yoga is fast gaining adherents through the new wave of “Christian yoga” across the nation.

“What we are attempting to do with a Christ-centered practice is fill the heart and mind with God, becoming ’single-minded’ as Scripture calls it,” Bordenkircher says. “With our focus off ourselves and on God, we are creating an atmosphere in which God can work.”

Critics contend that with yoga something else is at work. In 2003, the Roman Catholic Church reaffirmed its stance against Eastern practices such as yoga, which it had condemned in 1989, warning that yoga “can degenerate into a cult of the body.”

As yoga has become more mainstream, Christian alternatives have emerged. Christian author Laurette Willis has received the most ink with her PraiseMoves philosophy. It keeps yogic-like postures but scraps mantras for scriptural recitation.

Bordenkircher, however, doesn’t shrink from the yogic label, noting that “Christ-centered yoga is definitely not just a repackaging of traditional yoga. Yes, the postures are the same, the breathing the same, etc., because it is yoga.”

The difference, she says, lies in the intention: shifting the focus from self to God with yogic postures (”breathing in” the Holy Spirit, for instance), integrating health as critical to effective godly service, and slowing down enough “from our fast-paced lives to actually hear God’s voice.”

That appeal has moved churches, such as Longwood Hills Congregational Church in Seminole County, Fla., to host yoga classes. Two years ago, Babetta Popoff rolled out twice-weekly “A Heart at Peace Christian Yoga” there. Classes average a dozen seekers, but Popoff occasionally receives disapproving e-mails that insist yoga has no place in church.

Popoff strongly disagrees.

“As Christians, we are given many examples in the Bible of those who took time to quiet themselves in prayer and meditation in order to reconnect with God: Isaac, Moses, David and even Jesus,” Popoff says. Yoga allows you to “reconnect with your body and your faith and find rest for your soul.”

Read more here...

What do you think?

Todd

FILED IN: Engaging Culture  Current Events and the Church  | ADDED: September 10, 2007 by Todd Rhoades | TELL-A-FRIEND |  TRACKBACKS: (0) | VIEWS:(2212) There are 29 Comments: