![]() ![]() ![]() Footnote 2 Yoga is often marketed as a scientifically validated, secular technique for cultivating beautiful, physically fit bodies. Polls show a steady rise from three percent of Americans practicing yoga in 1976 to fifteen percent in 2016. Prior to the 1960s, yoga was culturally marginal in the United States. This article considers what the cultural mainstreaming of yoga and meditation, including Christian yoga and public-school yoga, reveals about the relationship between Christianity and American culture. Classes begin sitting “cross-legged” (in Padmāsana, or Lotus) to “find mental stillness.” The next “30–50% of a class” consists of Sūrya Namaskāras the Wheaton brochure labels some poses in English and others in Sanskrit-for instance, “Mountain,” “Chaturanga,” and “Downward Dog.” Classes end with “Savasana, or Corpse.” Although implying that the substitution of English and Christian language redeems yoga from Hinduism, Wheaton adopts the same pose sequences and even some terms from “unredeemed” yoga. Wheaton yoga looks a lot like traditional yoga. Quoting an arsenal of biblical proof texts, Wheaton argues that yoga helps Christians “be still” in God's presence (Psalm 46:10), avoid being “anxious” (Matthew 6:25–27), and manifest “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22–23). Second, instructors subtract “ancient (and sometimes religious) words” from pose descriptions and add Christian belief statements: at the start or end of class, they “lead a prayer, offer Scripture or a word of spiritual encouragement.” Although offered by the Athletics Department, Wheaton envisions yoga as more than exercise. Yoga needed redemption because it is “undeniably rooted in Hinduism” and because “one common postural sequence, the Sun Salutation (Sanskrit: Surya Namaskara), originated as worship to the solar deity, Surya.” What redeems yoga at Wheaton is, first, that it is taught by Christians who have signed the Wheaton College Statement of Faith. “Wheaton College believes offering yoga courses contributes to the college mission to serve Jesus Christ and advance His Kingdom by educating the whole person through a redeemed form of yoga that addresses physical, emotional and spiritual needs.” In 2015, Wheaton issued a four-page position statement to reassure fellow-evangelicals that the College has redeemed yoga from its non-Christian roots. Naïveté about how practices can change beliefs may undercut Christian doctrines, facilitate mandatory yoga and mindfulness meditation in which public-school children and teachers are required to participate, and impede evangelistic goals by implicating Christians in cultural appropriation and cultural imperialism. I argue that, although many evangelicals feel like an embattled minority, they are complicit in cultural movements that marginalize them. Baird's failure to dislodge yoga exposes tensions in Christian anti-yoga and pro-yoga positions that stem from a belief-centered understanding of religion, the dissatisfaction of many Americans with Protestant dominance in cultural institutions, and a broad-based pursuit of moral cultivation through yoga spirituality. In 2013, evangelical parents in California sued the Encinitas Union School District (EUSD) for promoting Hinduism through Ashtanga yoga. Some evangelicals and pentecostals view yoga as idolatry or an opening to demonic spirits others fill gaps in Christian practice by using linguistic substitution to Christianize yoga. Yoga is a flashpoint for divisions among Christians and between them and others. ![]() This article examines Christian yoga and public-school yoga as windows onto the fraught relationship between Christianity and culture. ![]() Between the 1960s and 2010s, yoga became a familiar feature of American culture, including its Christian subcultures. ![]()
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