http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Prayer

And although Christian leaders like to claim that it is distinct from yoga, once you look into it you can see that basically it’s the same, and the Church is just parsing words to claim it’s something different and uniquely “Christian.”

Oh also movies that are banned at some point there include:
Space Jam
Babe
Babe 2: A pig in the city

He was serious. It helped me to see that, despite it’s status as a “mainstream” religion, (certain) Christians believe in demons and witchcraft just as much as any Wiccan.

Christians who fear other religions do so not because they don’t think something’s there, but because they fear there might be.

K

This strikes me as another “Macys vs. Gimbels” case, i.e. they’re bad mouthing the competition in order to prevent some of their customers from going across the street and trying another provider of spiritual services.

Not too far off from Scientology’s scathing hatred of psychologists, methinks.

Also: Just 46% of those polled correctly identify Martin Luther (1483-1546) as the person whose writings and actions inspired the Protestant reformation.

And… only 42% of American Protestants correctly identify the Dalai Lama’s religion as Buddhism. Seriously?

Liking something that makes you feel nice isn’t a theological justification of that practice. No matter how far people make their yoga stray from a spiritual practice, it remains at root a spiritual/religious practice…it doesn’t matter if you never meditate and heat the room to hundreds of degrees. People are pretty up in arms about this and I’m not really sure why. My advice to christians who love yoga is to keep doing it, but accept there may be some clashes between it and your faiths ideology…but there are plenty of christian capitalist out there and I would say this is a lot easier to make an honest peace with.

Except that all theology is entirely arbitrary, and if all Christians (or the vast majority) decided that yoga was in fact actually compatible with Christianity, then, hey, whadda ya know, it would be. (And judging by the comments on this thread, such a change in attitude amongst Christians already has happened to some degree.)

Even if there were still a few other practitioners crying and screaming and hollering how it isn’t, and how dare you sir, change Christian theology as it has been practiced for the last 2000 years?

If such a hypothetical were to happen, and you were on the side of keeping alive the 2000 year tradition, then I suppose it would be time to start your own schism. What fun! You get to be in charge and wear the giant hat now!

It goes hand-in-hand with the mentality that acknowledging anything below the neck is risking a rapid transit ride to the big H. We had a saying: “No having sex, because it might lead to dancing.”

Fortunately, I grew up and now practice all three activities with zeal.

Can’t use your body.

Mohler said he objects to “the idea that the body is a vehicle for reaching consciousness with the divine.”

only 42% of American Protestants correctly identify the Dalai Lama’s religion as Buddhism.

Paraphrased from SNL’s Gandhi and the Bear c. 1983:

Gandhi: The road to nirvana is paved with positive intentions.
Julia Louis Dreyfuss: Nirvana? I think I ate in a Stuckey’s there once.

Whether one accepts or rejects his argument, he’s theologically on strong ground. His essential argument is 1) yoga cannot be completely divorced from its spiritual history and context, and 2) its context and goals are alien to basic mainstream Christian theology as it has existed for the last thousand years. I would argue that both of these claims are clearly true.

When HH the Dalai Lama argues that most people should remain within their formative religious traditions and not mix and match, observing that there are fundamental differences between different spiritual approaches, he generates no controversy or charges of bigotry. I think what we have here is a substantially similar claim.

I would argue with many of the details of his reading of the history of yoga, particularly Mohler’s claim that yoga traditions seek union with God through the body. Perhaps some do, but the Rajayoga expounded by Patanjali’s Yogasutra most certainly does not. It is a vehemently dualistic tradition that asserts a complete separation between body and mind.

I do not agree that Christians should not do yoga, but I do agree that people should be thoughtful about what they’re doing and why, and not approach spiritual practice as a smorgasbord. What Mohler sees as the chaos of postmodern relativism, I see as a lack of reflection.

Since when did a church begin implying that there was only one correct path to your experience of God? Wait, nevermind, I think I answered my own question. Franchises hate, fear and denigrate competitors.

For the record, Transubstantiation is a Roman Catholic thing, and fundy Christians like the guy from the article don’t believe in it.
Catholics != Fundamentalist

Meister Eckhardt and San Juan De La Cruz are those who’s lives, experience and writings would prompt immediate recognition in any long-term devoted practitioner of prananyama and spiritual, hatha yoga.

To say nothing of this text, contemporary with the emergence of Bhakti yoga in India and dhikr khafi in Persia. It remains a classic – preserved within Christian circles for over 700 years, without formal sponsorship.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cloud_of_Unknowing

The Spiritual Guide, by Miguel de Molinos, is another book that would be recognisable by spiritual practitioners of yoga. The emphasis on the proper master/disciple relationship is explored in its correct dimensions – including the error of wayfaring without guidance of one already well-travelled through the pitfalls and blind avenues, awaiting would-be practitioners.

Again, many hundreds of years of treasuring and protecting this book in Christian circles testify to a native tradition in the church, of meditative quitism, actively practised – despite persecution from the ecclesiastic hierarchy.

This condemnation came from the same churches, which consider their theological founding and the model for priesthood in the work of St. Thomas Aquinas. Yet it is in Aquinas’ explanation of the via negativa that one may clearly see a theological orthodoxy in quietist practices, still classed as heresy in Catholicism.