Yoga and Christian faith

Christians can do yoga. If you enjoy a yoga class but have heard that it is dangerous for a Christian, or you feel uneasy when the teacher ends with a chant, you are asking a careful and faithful question. Yoga has roots in the religions of India, and some classes include chants or prayers. Scripture gives Christians freedom here, with a simple guide: you can take part in the exercise and sit out anything that addresses other gods. Christians who decide against yoga for conscience’ sake deserve respect, and so do Hindus for whom yoga is sacred.

Is yoga a religion?

Yoga began as a spiritual discipline within the religious traditions of India, and for many Hindus it remains a path of devotion and self-discipline. Christians can speak about that heritage with respect.

Most yoga classes in the West today are something different. The scholar Mark Singleton argues in Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice (Oxford University Press, 2010) that the posture-based yoga common in gyms owes a great debt to modern Indian nationalism, European bodybuilding, and early twentieth-century women’s gymnastics. Its publisher’s description says Singleton finds no evidence in the Indian tradition for the fitness-centered posture practice that dominates yoga worldwide today.

The question for a Christian, then, is what a particular class asks you to do. Holding a pose and breathing slowly is exercise. Chanting a mantra to a Hindu deity is prayer to that deity. Christians can do the first and decline the second.

What does the Bible say about yoga?

The Bible never mentions yoga, but Paul faced a similar question. Christians in Corinth asked whether they could eat meat that had been sacrificed in pagan temples and then sold in the market. Paul’s answer was that the idols have no real power:

Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “no idol in the world really exists” and that “there is no God but one.”

1 Corinthians 8:4, NRSVUE

Paul told the Corinthians, “Whatever is sold in the butcher shop, eat, asking no question for the sake of conscience,” because “the earth is the Lord’s, and its fullness” (1 Corinthians 10:25–26). If meat from a pagan altar could be eaten with thanks to God, then a stretching exercise with Indian roots can be practiced with thanks to God as well. In Romans Paul states the principle broadly:

I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who considers it unclean.

Romans 14:14, NRSVUE

Paul added two limits. First, Christians must not let their freedom harden into contempt for those who disagree: “be careful that by no means does this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to the weak” (1 Corinthians 8:9). Second, each Christian should follow their own conscience, “whatever is not of faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). If yoga troubles your conscience, do not do it. If it does not, you are free. Christians have reasoned in the same way about food laws; see Can Christians eat pork?

Paul also gives a positive reason to care for the body. “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit,” he wrote, “therefore glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20). Exercise that keeps a body strong and flexible can be a way of honoring God’s gift, and the psalmist praises God for that gift: “I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14).

Do Christians have their own prayer of body and breath?

Christian tradition has long joined the body and the breath to prayer. In the Eastern Orthodox churches, the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” is repeated slowly and often. It gathers up the cry of the blind man, “Jesus, you son of David, have mercy on me!” (Luke 18:38), and the tax collector’s “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:13).

Orthodox monks, especially on Mount Athos in Greece, taught people to pray the Jesus Prayer sitting still, with head bowed, in rhythm with their breathing. This tradition of still, attentive prayer is called hesychasm, from the Greek hesychia, “stillness.” In the fourteenth century Gregory Palamas, archbishop of Thessalonica, defended it against critics, arguing that the body God made can share in prayer. The same Orthodox teachers warned that breathing methods are only aids. What matters in the prayer is the name of Jesus and the attention of the heart to God.

That warning fits yoga too. Relaxation is a good gift of God. Prayer goes further, because it turns the whole person, body and soul, toward the Father, through Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit. A Christian can enjoy the first and let it lead into the second.

How can a Christian do yoga faithfully?

Choose a class or teacher whose focus is fitness and flexibility. If a session ends with a chant or a prayer you cannot share, keep silent, or use the time for your own prayer. Some Christians use the slow breathing of a yoga session to pray a short prayer, such as the Lord’s Prayer or a verse from the Psalms: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). For simple ways to pray, see How do I pray?

Respect those who disagree, whether they are Christians who avoid yoga or Hindus for whom yoga is sacred. Paul’s rule applies here: “Whether therefore you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). For how Christians relate to people of other religions, see Is Jesus the only way to God? For a similar question about a popular holiday, see Can Christians celebrate Halloween?

The body God made can pray. At the end of your next session, or at the end of any day, you might breathe in slowly and say in your heart the words Orthodox Christians have prayed for centuries, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,” and then breathe out, “have mercy on me, a sinner.” The God who gave you breath is nearer to you than your breathing, and he is glad when you turn toward him.