Is yoga a sin?

What my Christian yoga class is like. Why I believe the yoga class that I teach is not bad and is not a sin.

Hello :)! I really hope your doing well! Thank you so much for taking the time to read my blog! I hope you find what your looking for :)!

A lot of Christians ask me, “Is yoga bad?” Or “Is yoga a sin?” Or “can you be a Christian and do yoga?”.

I want to start off with saying I don’t want to change your views on yoga as a whole. I can’t speak for all yoga classes out. Because there are so many different ones! There is: paddle board yoga, yoga for elderly, power yoga, goat yoga, yoga therapy, trauma sensitive yoga, prenatal yoga, aerial yoga, Hatha yoga, vinyasa yoga, and so much more! There are also so many different types of yoga teachers.

I want to tell you how my christian yoga class (specifically my relaxing de-stressing yoga class) is different. It’s even different from other Christian yoga classes.

I personally started teaching christian yoga for many reasons, here are some of them:

• I have scoliosis in my back and yoga is one of the best things to do to prevent back pain in the future.

• I used to struggle with anxiety and not being able to sleep at night and yoga helps you learn breathing techniques that help with anxiety, and yoga helps put your body and mind in a state of relaxation so you can sleep

• I also used to be a very stressed person and yoga with deep breathing is an amazing stress management tool.

• I feel called to work with girls who have been physically and sexually abused so I became certified to teach trauma sensitive christian yoga classes. Now I have an opportunity to work with these girls. I can use christian yoga as a form of therapy (similar to art therapy) to help victims of physical and sexual abuse feel comfortable in their own skin again, and feel more connected to God!

• I’ve been a Christian my whole life and my parents are pastors. I know God loves me and I know God is with me. However, in my first Christian yoga class I just cried and cried... because it was the FIRST TIME that I actually was able to SLOW DOWN my mind and my body enough to actually FEEL Gods love for me! The Christian Yoga class really helped me BE STILL and hear from God.

Those are just some of the reasons why I personally teach Christian yoga. There are many other reasons why yoga is beneficial for your mind, body, and soul.

I want to describe to you what my class is like. There is nothing weird or creepy or demonic about my class.

-We don’t chant “OM” or anything for that matter.

-We don’t go through the Chakras.

-We don’t try and “empty our mind”.

This is what we DO in my relaxing and de-stressing class.

-We read and focus on Bible verses

-We listen to and sing worship music you would hear in church.

-We pray.

-We do simple basic stretching.

-We do deep breathing exercises.

Is meditation a sin?

No! The word meditate is just a fancy word that means “focus”. For the meditation part of class, I just speak bible verses out loud. There’s nothing else to it. The Bible actually says that we need to meditate on Gods word day and night. (Joshua 1:8). That’s what we do in class.

The most beautiful thing about my class is that I help you to GET FOCUSED on God instead of the busy world around you. To stop what your doing and spend time with God.

Are you calling on Hindu Gods with the yoga poses?

No. Some people believe that certain yoga poses are calling unto Hindu Gods. I believe that’s not true at all and that stretching or exercising (just like track or gymnastics), can’t be owned by a religion. Can people run track or do gymnastics or do stretches and exercises and in their heart while they are doing it worship Hindu Gods? Sure they could. But I don’t believe that Christians can’t stretch or exercise because another religion uses it.

When you type in the definition of the word YOGA on google, it will tell you that’s it’s a Hindu practice. Yoga is a spiritual practice just like fasting is a spiritual practice. One religion can’t just own a spiritual practice for themselves. Just like Christianity can’t say that fasting is “Christian” because Jesus fasted in the Bible and no other religion can use it because they would be "fasting for Jesus" if they did.

The Hindu religion was the first ones to claim yoga as part of their religion and put structure to it. But breathing and stretching existed before the Hindu religion existed and can be practiced without participating in Hindu religion.

The word YOGA means “to yoke” or “union”

What matters when your doing yoga is what your yoking yourself too. Another word for “yoke” would be “connect”. Some yoga classes they teach about connecting to the universe, it’s kind of like the new age religion. Some yoga classes teach about connecting to Hindu Gods, some yoga classes teach about connecting to Allah. In my class I teach about connecting with Jesus our God!

Another example I can give is it’s kind of like a church. There can be a church where you worship the devil, and that’s bad. There can also be a church where you worship Jesus and that’s good! The church structure itself isn’t bad just because Satanist use that structure or spiritual practice as part of their religion too. We understand that although we have similar spiritual practices as any other church, we are worshiping Jesus! Thus “church” itself and the spiritual practices in it isn’t bad. Yoga is the same thing!

Yoga (the act of stretching and deep breathing) isn’t bad. But if your worshiping false Gods while doing yoga, then that’s bad.

Yoga isn’t the only thing that has Pagan or Hindu roots. Christmas and Easter both were originally Pagan Holidays before The church decided God could redeem these holidays. So we celebrate things like Jesus’ birth and resurrection on the same days instead.

Greater is He that lives in me than he that lives in the world 1 John 4:4. I believe that God can redeem or restore anything. I believe that while we do these yoga stretches, we can in our heart be worshiping our one true God!

Can you do yoga without calling it yoga?

Yes. If you disagree with me and you don’t feel comfortable doing typical yoga poses that’s totally ok, my favorite type of class that I teach is RELAXING yoga. In that class we don’t do any of the typical yoga moves that some people believe is bad. We only do gentle stretches that everyone knows. These are stretches that you would do in a sport or at the gym.

If you are a church leader and you want to have yoga classes at your church but you don’t like the name “yoga” that’s totally fine! We can call it “gentle stretching” and advertise it in your church that way.

Why I like to use the word “yoga” is simply because more people will come if it has the name Yoga. More people know what that is. It’s a very popular thing to do right now. It can also help Non-Christians experience God! When normally they wouldn’t come to church service, but will come to a yoga class! I use my in person yoga classes as an evangelistic tool.

Like I said before there’s so many different types of yoga! My class with stretching, meditation on Gods word, and deep breathing can be considered “yoga”. HOWEVER it also can be considered “gentle stretching” and a “worship experience with Jesus”!!!

IN CONCLUSION

Yoga, that is breathing and stretching, is not bad and is not a sin. It’s an exercise. Yoga can be used as a spiritual practice were you “yoke” or connect yourself to a spiritual being. In my opinion AS LONG AS the yoga teacher has the goal to connect you with Jesus and worship our God, then that class IS GOOD and is not a sin! Some yoga teachers have the goal to worship Hindu Gods or use other spiritual practices in their yoga class and none of it is focused on Jesus. THAT in my opinion is bad. Because it can open the doors to other spirits that aren’t the Holy Spirit. So YES Christians can do yoga as long as you and the teacher are focusing on worshipping Jesus through the yoga practice :)!

Like I said in the beginning, I didn’t want to change your views on yoga as a whole. I just wanted to tell you about my Christian yoga class and how it’s different. I hope this information was helpful to you. Please let me know if you have any questions! Thank you so Much for your time in reading this post ❤️!