Atlanta Christians who practice yoga are rejecting a pronouncement by a Southern Baptist leader who said the ancient meditative practice is inconsistent with their religion.
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler says the stretching and meditative discipline derived from Eastern religions, and is not a Christian pathway to God.
He said he objects to "the idea that the body is a vehicle for reaching consciousness with the divine."
Christians who practice yoga disagree.
The entire ministerial staff at Northside Drive Baptist Church in Atlanta does yoga, said Michael Gregg, an associate pastor there.
"It's not about religion. It's more of a physiological and psychological philosophy," said Gregg, whose wife teaches a weekly class at the church. The physical and meditative nature of yoga helps to clear the mind, creating an opening for a deeper spiritual connection, he said.
"Sometimes we're so filled with clutter that it helps to empty our minds, to open ourselves up to God," Gregg said.
Mohler said he heard from plenty of people who defended yoga after he wrote about it in an online essay. He said feedback had come through e-mail and comments on blogs and other websites since he wrote an essay to address questions about yoga he had heard for years.
"I'm really surprised by the depth of the commitment to yoga found on the part of many who identify as Christians," Mohler said told The Associated Press .
Yoga fans say their numbers have been growing in the U.S. A 2008 study by the Yoga Journal put the number at 15.8 million, or nearly 7 percent of adults. About 6.7 percent of American adults are Southern Baptists, according to a 2007 survey by the Pew Research Center Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Mohler argued in his online essay last month that Christians who practice yoga "must either deny the reality of what yoga represents or fail to see the contradictions between their Christian commitments and their embrace of yoga."
He said his view is "not an eccentric Christian position."
Other Christian leaders have said practicing yoga is incompatible with the teachings of Jesus. Pat Robertson has called the chanting and other spiritual components that go along with yoga "really spooky." California megachurch pastor John MacArthur called yoga a "false religion." Muslim clerics have banned Muslims from practicing yoga in Egypt, Malaysia and Indonesia, citing similar concerns.
Yoga proponents say the wide-ranging discipline, which originated in India, is a form of exercise that offers physical and mental healing through stretching poses and concentration.
It stimulates the nervous system and improves flexibility -- while also calming the mind said Dayna Gelinas, a yoga instructor in Kennesaw. "It's very different from getting on a treadmill."
Some instructors, including Gelinas, have replaced associations to eastern religions, namely Hinduism and its multiple deities, with Christian themes. She teaches at Methodist churches in Roswell and Marietta, and said singing or chanting scripture during practice sharpens the focus on faith.
"My yoga practice is just something I do to enhance my faith," Gelinas said. "I don't see how you can separate your body from your mind or spirit."
Others have simply stripped away the spiritual element. The form of yoga taught at Second Ponce de Leon Baptist Church in Atlanta has "sort of been de-religionalized," said Senior Pastor David Sapp.
"What we do is yoga as stretching, exercise and relaxation technique," he said. "We don't do yoga as Buddhist philosophy."
By "we," he means his wife, his congregation and non-congregants from the community. He tried it a couple times and didn't like it much.
Sapp said he was surprised to hear about Mohler's essay because it was addressing an issue that didn't seem very provocative anymore. Years ago, Christians were suspicious, even fearful, of yoga and other things associated with Eastern religions. But it's not so new and shocking anymore, he said.
Mohler wrote the essay after reading "The Subtle Body," where author Stefanie Syman traces the history of yoga in America. Syman noted the growing popularity of yoga in the U.S. by pointing out that first lady Michelle Obama has added it to the festivities at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll on the front lawn.
Mohler said many people have written him to say they're simply doing exercises and forgoing yoga's eastern mysticism and meditation.
"My response to that would be simple and straightforward: You're just not doing yoga," Mohler said.
Sapp rejects the notion that Christians can't connect with God through yoga.
"I believe that God can come to us in all experiences in life," Sapp said. "God has lots of ways of revealing himself to people, and if he chose to do it through yoga, he could sure do that."
The Associated Press contributed to this article
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