To Yoga or not to Yoga?

Does the origin of something ultimately determine whether it is good or bad? Specifically can a practice or activity become good even if it came out of a negative or conflicting worldview? Yesterday a debate arose out of a professor’s comment that yoga is bad and that he disapproved of the fact that the church he is an elder at holds yoga classes. The reason for this belief being that yoga originated from Eastern religion and is so deeply tied to it that one cannot separate the two.
Now I have to say that I could care less about yoga. The point of this post is not to discuss the merits of yoga. I do wish to discuss this idea of origin. Is it wrong to practice something that has a negative origin? Knee jerk reaction would be “Yes, it is wrong,” but then you take a closer look at other commonly accepted practices and I think a lot of people might change that view. The first thing that automatically came to mind is holidays. If you look at the origins of Christmas trees and Easter eggs you’ll find that they both have their roots in pagan rituals. When a student brought this up the teachers response was, “Well, those have been so secularized that they are no longer linked to those traditions. ” (He also mentioned how he really liked Christmas trees and didn’t want to give those up….but that’s a whole different subject) Okay, fine…but what’s to say that Yoga and other similar activities aren’t becoming the same way. And second of all, isn’t placing a secular tradition onto a Christian holiday just as bad. In a way I’d say it’s worse, Christmas and Easter are times when we are supposed to be celebrating Christ and anything that takes the focus away from him would be wrong. Third, it seems wrong to pick and choose which things to reject and which to accept if the basis of your objection is their origin. If you reject one you need to reject them all and if you accept one you need to accept them all.
I’m not trying to ban Christmas trees or yoga. Honestly, I think my professor was being an alarmist and the attitude itself is a bit dangerous, I don’t think these things are wrong because I believe they can be taken and changed to fit a different worldview. Just as you shouldn’t judge a child by their parents, you shouldn’t judge a practice or idea by what it once was but rather by what it has become. I believe that God can work through a variety of things and if Yoga ministry or sports bar ministry serves as a way to reach out to non-Christians then that’s great. It all comes down to the context of the practice. If you are practicing something for a negative reason then obviously it is wrong, but if say you were to use yoga meditation techniques to focus on God then would it be wrong? We certainly need to be aware of origins and careful that these practices do not revert back to those origins, but we also need to look at the context in which something is being practiced in the here and now before we reject it. The reality is that Christianity has changed. It is impossible for us to look the same as the church of the New Testament or the church of 20 years ago. I certainly do not believe that anything goes and that we should dismiss the Bible out of hand, but much of the Bible was written to specific people at specific times. We need to look not only at the context of the Bible in its historical/cultural context, but also in the context of today’s culture.
As ambassadors of Christ we have 3 options:
1. Reject all other worldviews and invite others into ours.
2. Give up our own worldview and take up a different one.
3. Meet half way and take the good from each and work from there.
I believe that Christ did number 3. Jesus met people where they were. He stepped into their worldview and transformed them from the inside out. I believe that by totally dismissing certain practices and trying to force people into our own worldview, we may in fact be turning people away from the very thing to which we are trying to bring them. We need to look closely at practices of the world and rather than rejecting them see how they can be adapted and transformed to further the kingdom of God.