Wary of Eastern spirituality, Christians try yoga with a twist

By Jorge Valencia

Christians stand on mats at a church hall, stretching their arms to the heavens and bending to their toes. They lay their palms on the floor, the soles of their feet perfectly flat. Chants spill from a stereo.

It looks as though the group is doing a yoga pose called Downward Dog - but it isn't. Group members, who meet weekly in Roanoke, bend into postures they call the Tallit, not the Big Toe, and the Dove, not the Pigeon.

They are participating in a program called PraiseMoves, not yoga.

The name changes are a subtle indicator of the sometimes tenuous relationship between the Eastern discipline of yoga and Western religions. While many Christians have practiced yoga for years, some Christian leaders have denounced it as pagan and demonic.

"Everybody has their own path that they have in terms of their spiritual journey, and my point of view is that I would want everybody's path to eventually merge into the Christian path," said Nancy Harvey, who leads the PraiseMoves group at Huntington Court United Methodist Church in Roanoke. "But it's not my judgment to make one way or the other."

The latest anti-yoga storm started last year when the blunt and popular pastor of a megachurch in Seattle said practicing yoga was akin to worshiping Hindu deities, not Jesus.

"If you sign up for a little yoga class, you're signing up for a little demon class," the Rev. Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church told followers during a widely broadcast sermon. "Satan doesn't care if you stretch as long as you go to hell."

Albert Mohler, president of the Louisville, Ky.-based Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, followed with an essay on his website making a similar argument with less inflammatory words.

Spiritual and physical dimensions of yoga can't be separated, Mohler wrote, and the spiritual ones are fundamentally at odds with Christianity because they call for using the body as a vehicle for achieving consciousness of the divine.

"When Christians practice yoga, they must either deny the reality of what yoga represents or fail to see the contradictions between their Christian commitments and their embrace of yoga," Mohler said.

Muslim clerics in Egypt and Malaysia have made similar comments. Jewish theologians also have explored the argument, giving rise to "Torah yoga" classes for Jews.

In 1989, the Vatican issued a document warning Roman Catholics that "proposals to harmonize Christian meditation with Eastern techniques need to have their contents and methods ever subjected to a thoroughgoing examination" to prevent adopting Hinduism and Buddhism.

"It's a question of how we define Hinduism, how we define yoga," said religion professor Eric Rothgery, an expert on South Asian religions at Roanoke College.

The query arises in academic and religious circles every few years. Some scholars believe yoga originated on the Indian subcontinent of Asia by 2,500 B.C. - centuries before the foundational Yoga Sutras were written by Hindu philosopher Patanjali. The term yoga - meaning "to yoke, to control, to unite" - could be owned by multiple traditions, Rothgery said.

Kristy DiGeronimo is a certified yoga instructor who teaches classes at two Virginia Beach churches. She said she understands the concerns but thinks yoga allows her to honor God and gives her a calm that makes her more receptive to biblical teachings.

"It really is a tool," she said. "Anyone of any faith or background can apply it to their life."

Michelle Muttart, who teaches at yoga studios in Radford and Christiansburg, said yoga is a philosophy that complements any faith, Eastern or Western.

"This is the South, so 95 percent of my students are Christian," Muttart said.

Laurette Willis, the Oklahoma evangelist who founded PraiseMoves in 2001, believes yoga is part of Hinduism. She teaches PraiseMoves techniques to other instructors in classes and on videos.

The postures she teaches have corresponding biblical scriptures:

n When practitioners place the palms of their hands and their feet on the floor, they are in the Tent. ("Enlarge the place of your tent, and let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings; do not spare; lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes." - Isaiah 54:2).

n When their legs are straight and they extend their arms to the side, they are in the Cross. ("Jesus said, 'Whoever desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.' " - Mark 8:34).

One participant at Huntington Court, Rick Hall, said he turned to PraiseMoves as physical therapy.

At a recent class, the 55-year-old nonprofit worker wore a bandanna and broke a sweat after 60 minutes of stretching. A portrait of Jesus looked down from a wall, and Gregorian chants filled the room.

In 2009, Hall said, high blood pressure caused him to have a heart attack. Quadruple bypass surgery followed.

He credits the class with relieving shoulder pains after the surgery - and changing his mindset.

Hall's instructor is Harvey, a lithe 59-year-old who works as a nurse practitioner during the week. She started teaching PraiseMoves in 2009 after nine years of yoga classes at her gym.

"When I got the opportunity to combine my physical activity with my Christian point of view," Harvey said, "it was something I felt I could use to connect with other people in the church and maybe enhance their spiritual experience."

Staff writer Denise Watson Batts contributed to this story.