Some Thoughts on Yoga and the Martial Arts

This blog post was prompted by a recent lively conversation between some Christian friends over coffee (the best place to learn each others’ opinions!). One side of the argument considered yoga and martial arts to be unequivocally A Bad Thing, but had few satisfactory justifications for this position. The other side of the debate considered yoga (for this was the subject about which we were discussing on the whole) to be fairly innocent, provided one stays away from the more spiritual elements such as meditation. My own opinion was to agree with the former argument. This had been shaped by my leaders telling me to avoid these activities because they are spiritually ‘unsound’. I had no reason to question this assumption, mainly because I have never had a desire to pursue a black belt in karate. I found I had little to contribute to the discussion because I had accepted the (well-intentioned) dogma of my leaders without thinking the matter through. So what follows is a collection of some thoughts and conclusions to which I have arrived in searching out this subject.

“All things are permissible for me, but not everything is profitable” (1 Corinthians 10:23) 

The first thing I’d like to stress is that I do not consider the casual practice of yoga and martial arts to be of itself sinful (if you disagree, please tell me why!). If the Bible is silent about a particular issue – these practices are not mentioned by name – then we must judge them by what the Bible does teach in general. Sin is always an issue of the heart, so we will proceed with the understanding that if the Holy Spirit has told you discontinue yoga then it would be sinful to disobey.

We are spiritual beings – this much should obvious to the believer. C.S. Lewis puts it best when he says that “you don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body” (Mere Christianity). But oftentimes it is easier to understand spiritual realities by thinking first about the physical realm to which we are most accustomed. The Bible is full of teaching about natural phenomena which reflect the spiritual reality of our world – consider sowing and reaping, or the likening of the Holy Spirit to wind.

So for now I will compare yoga and the martial arts to smoking. This probably would not be considered an inherently sinful activity by the majority of believers (perhaps one hundred years ago it would have been normal for Christians to smoke, like the rest of society). But because we now understand the harm that smoking causes to the body, and the sickness and addiction which result, we would consider it inappropriate for the believer. It may be a legal choice, but out of reverence for the temple of the Holy Spirit – our bodies – we choose to refrain from this activity.

So what does this have to do with yoga? Wiser men than I have strongly discouraged believers from taking part in this, because yoga (and indeed the martial arts) has its roots in the occult. At the word ‘occult’ some of you undoubtedly rolled your eyes, thinking of satanists and witches and considering me ‘super-spiritual’. Please bear with me. I take the word ‘occult’ to mean any spirituality or spiritual practice that is outside the influence of Christ. Such spirituality is invariably demonic and anti-Christ in nature. Yoga hails from India and is the meditative practices – the physical and mental disciplines – of Hinduism and Buddhism. The martial arts hail from the Far East and are combative disciplines which take the majority of their theory, philosophy and worldview from Buddhism, and to a lesser extent Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism and Shinto. I’m writing for a Christian audience so my next assertion should be uncontroversial: these are false religions which follow false gods (and the Bible says that idol-worship is demon-worship; see 1 Corinthians 10:20).

When I was younger I had some back pain and my mother taught me a stretch from yoga which really helped. It was called the cobra and involved curving your back like a snake ready to strike. It really did help the pain! But the spiritual significance of snakes is barely worth stating – they are symbolic for demons. So while I was pursuing a physical position I considered harmless, and of no deeper spirituality – I was in fact offering my body to a demonic reality. I do not want to open my life to a spirituality other than that which comes from the Holy Spirit. Not everything is profitable. The point is that as a believer in Christ I should offer my body to Him and believe Him for healing, while also honouring my physical body by treating it properly.

This is a good moment to raise a fascinating point – surely He who is in you is greater than He who is in the world (1 John 4:4), so God will protect you should you participate in this. Maybe He will. But that does not make it wise. God probably would have protected Jesus had He thrown Himself from the Temple, but our Saviour chose not to test Him.

There are a multitude of ways to exercise and stretch apart from yoga, and it is possible to learn how to defend oneself apart from the martial arts. Indeed, meditation is an essential part of the Christian life. But we do not meditate under the influence of false gods and a demonic paradigm. We meditate on the Word of the Living God. While eastern meditation such as yoga seeks to empty the mind, we seek instead to fill it with His Word until we think differently. If we want to feel ‘balanced’ and ‘centred’ (trendy New Age terms associated with eastern meditation) we should perhaps spend some time in the Presence of the King of Glory who longs to fill our lives with love, joy and peace. Amen!

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