REPLY TO MOHLER
For Brenda Davis
Michael DeShane Hinton, M.Div.
Our foundational theology affects everything else in our lives, how we live and what kind of church we attend being the most important. If we conceive of salvation as an abstraction, that is, an eternal decree or judicial pardon or declared righteousness, then our lives will reflect that in a neglect or denial of feelings, intellectual pursuits that depend on questions being asked, and abuse of the body. But once we accept the Biblical view that we are justified by works and not by faith alone, that believing in Jesus is the work that God requires, and that we must work out our salvation, then the whole of our being, every aspect of our personhood gets involved. We see that the habits of our life make a difference in spiritual formation and faith development.
Albert Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, said he objects to "the idea that the body is a vehicle for reaching consciousness with the divine." He was specifically critical of Christians that practice yoga. Of course, he would object because foundational Baptist theology rests upon an abstraction.
Contrary to the Baptist way is how the almighty and everlasting God is leading millions of Christians to engage holistically every aspect of life and personality in Christian discipleship. Yoga is merely the Hindu word for discipline, and a yogi is a one that practices a discipline. A yoga master or guru, just as Mohler has a Master of Divinity degree and is a clergymen, is one that can teach others the discipline that he or she has mastered. Jesus was called Rabbi (teacher), and master or Lord. Why? It was because he taught a way of salvation, a discipline that would save us if practiced. He did not come only to die for our sins as the Baptist tend to proclaim. He taught us a way to live so that we can finally be saved, if we are faithful to the end of our days.
Now, Mohler is correct that Raja Marga, one of the four paths in Hinduism, is especially tricky for Christians. We do not always acknowledge in the West the existence of alien spirits that want to gain entrance to our souls. This may be what “spooks” Mohler. The New Age movement is naïve in encouraging people to find their spirit guide. Spiritualists attempt to make contact with spirits of the departed. Satanists pray to be possessed by demons or by Satan himself. So, opening the soul to “other beings” as some teach is certainly to be avoided. Christians have a Lord – Jesus. No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Spirit. But one cannot deny that Christians do practice spiritual disciplines, like prayer and confession, which open the soul to God. In the Psalms, especially those called imprecatory ones, we see David revealing everything he thinks and feels in complete honesty and vulnerability before God. In this same way, as Raja Marga teaches, we are taught to empty ourselves and conversely expect God to fill us with his Spirit and his love – in the name of Jesus, the only-begotten of the Father.
Beyond that, yogic practices, exercises, classes, and techniques are easily filled with Judeo-Christian content because they are morally neutral and proven methods with parallels in the Bible. Jesus himself said that we must love God with heart, mind, soul, and strength. These four ways to love God are direct (and I believe intentional) parallels to the four paths of Hinduism. With the previous warning in mind one may freely engage them.
Moler rightly refers to the philosophical basis for yoga in Hinduism. But I’m not sure he understands our own Christian philosophical stance. The primary difference between East and West are philosophical suppositions about the nature of the world: dualism in the West and monism in the East. In Western dualism the spiritual and material are eternally and perpetually at odds and opposed to each other. Salvation is described as the soul escaping the body at death. Until death, according to Western dualism, we must treat the body as an enemy because it is the seat and cause of sin. In Eastern monism there is really no such thing as good and evil but everything that exists works in supposed harmony. There is no effective doctrine of sin, therefore; there is only ignorance, including experiential ignorance. So yoga was developed to help the practitioner become one with the universe of being that is the entire world and thus achieve inner peace. But Judaism and Christianity, properly understood, embrace modified dualism, with elements both of dualism and monism. God created the physical world and called it “very good.” Except for sin the physical world, including the human body, remains “very good.” And when God sought to defeat sin and evil once and for all, he became incarnate, a real, flesh and blood, human, physical being, in his Son, Jesus. That’s because God wants to re-deem everything that was previously deemed “very good.”
A true program of Christian yoga, therefore, is thoroughly redemptive because it nvolves the whole world that God created. It would include lectio divina (a method for meditating on God’s word) and other mental/intellectual disciplines like those taught in Jnana Marga of Hinduism but with Christian content. It would include emotional involvement in worship and devotion to God as in Bahkti Marga. When we involve our feelings in the worship of God we might want to remember this, whoever says he loves God must love his brother also, meaning fellow brothers and sisters Christ. To love God with our souls in prayer and confession, as previously discussed, we must be careful that it is God and God alone that we invite into our lives. He will fill us with his Spirit, if we have repented of our sins and seek to walk in his holy ways. Then, to love God with the actions of our bodies, as taught in Karma Marga, we must accept that our physical being is essential to God’s plan. Our bodies are uniquely designed to bear and reflect the image of God in which we are made. Again, we are temples of the Holy Spirit and so the care of our bodies is a religious act that loves God. At that point one must decide on a practical basis alone what is best for the body. Mohler should argue his case on that basis and not on the basis of a faulty theological charge that he himself seems not to understand. To say Christian yoga is not real yoga is simply not a serious argument.
Jesus told his disciples that whatsoever they loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven; and whatever they bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven. Through prayer, honest debate, and discernment we can know what of the “pagan” world is morally neutral and what is not. The morally neutral things we find can be sanctified for holy use. I wonder if Mohler puts up a Christmas tree at his house, for instance.
End.