Can Christians Do Yoga?

A few years back, I remember seeing a comment on fb about yoga being demonic. How utterly ridiculous I thought. What an ignorant, knee-jerk rejection against  an ancient, sacred practise. 

I’ve changed my mind. I know how this might sound to you if you’re not on the same page. I can understand why it’s so tempting to dismiss and label ‘Christian fundamentalists’ as stupid and brainwashed and lacking spiritual depth, but I did not come to this conclusion lightly, but rather spent months considering the evidence. 

I invite those with an open mind to read on to hear more about my journey and how I came to this conclusion.

Firstly I experienced the presence of God. It was a tiny, nano-second of a moment where I said the Lord’s prayer, and experienced something that was totally different to anything I’d ever experienced in all the different spiritual practises I’d tried since I first did yoga over twenty years ago. I definitely do not believe that ‘god’ is in everything, and it’s all just one consciousness. I’d spent decades doing different practises to cultivate my consciousness and directing a prayer to the very personal God was completely different. 

Secondly I looked into new age deception, watching hours of documentaries and testimonies, about the roots of the new age, and it’s connection to Satanism. I came across this video tour of the Lucis (formerly Lucifer) Trust Library at the United Nations, and noticed all the yoga books lining the shelves. While I continued to practise yoga, while reading the Bible and learning more, I was questioning things. 

 I listened to testimonies from ex-yoga teachers like Mike Shreve, who decided to give God and the Bible a chance one day in the 1970’s, and went hitchhiking and was picked up by a Christian. A Christian who just happened to be part of a prayer group who’d seen an article about Shreve in the local newspaper and had a round the clock 24 hour prayer and fasting for him. 

The final decision point for me was watching an interview with an ex-yoga teacher who explained how every yoga pose is designed to worship a different God. Now in the Bible, one of the main messages God gives us is that we shall not worship any other gods. The reason? There are no other gods. There is God, and there are angels, (who only rarely communicate with humans) and there are demons.

In India when Hindus convert to Christianity they would never dream of continuing to do yoga, because they know it is a Hindu practise. While in the west we see yoga as part of a ‘spiritual but not religious’ belief system, or as some do ‘just stretching,’ it is actually a religious practise. Each pose is an act of worship. And what are we worshipping? Are these yoga gods true? And are they who we are told they are? 

Take for example the god Shiva, the destroyer. You may be aware that outside CERN there is a statue of Shiva. Ever wonder why? A testimony I watched from someone who prayed to Shiva, explained the risks of this. 

The reason I became a Christian is I came to believe that we are living in a Christian reality. I came to this conclusion after listening to testimonies like Joe Schimmel - who when under spiritual attack called on the name of Jesus to rescue him. Another testimony that made me feel certain was from a woman who had spirit guides but one day tried the Biblical method of ‘testing the spirits.’ Her ‘guides’ transformed into demons, laughing and mocking her. 

The Apostle Paul said that ‘Satan himself transforms himself to an angel of light.’ We are warned about the dangers of being deceived by our own ‘love and light’ visions and perceptions, and to ‘be careful that the light within you is not darkness.’  

When we think of how yoga classes end, saying ‘namaste,’ - the god in me sees, the god in you - we see a continuation of the story of the old serpent, from the garden of Eden, you shall eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and you can be like God. Either the garden of Eden story in the Bible is twisted, and we should all follow the serpent, awakening our kundalini, and becoming gods. Or we should listen to the warning of the Bible, that we need to humble ourselves, and admit we are human.