Can Christians do yoga? Should Christians do yoga? Am I worshipping some kind of Hindu god when I do certain yoga poses? Is yoga some New Age practice? What’s with the om and the chanting? What’s with the weird pose names? WHAT EVEN IS YOGA?!

Hello, welcome to my inbox.

As someone who follows Jesus and teaches yoga (and posts videos that combine the two on the internet), I get these types of questions a lot. Among Christian circles, there is a fear of yoga that I believe originates from a heartfelt desire to not stray from the path of Jesus. For most of us who were raised in Western Christian culture, the Eastern roots of yoga are foreign and the practice can be both mysterious and intimidating.

The following posts are designed to try to thoughtfully, accurately, and respectfully respond to these and other questions, and in the process, create a space for kind dialogue about what it means to love and follow Jesus in today’s global culture. I believe it’s important to critically engage with culture and faith (and faith culture), to ask hard questions, sit with mysterious unanswers, and engage with people who believe differently than us in conversations about meaningful things.

But, we do this from a place of curiosity before judgement. I think we can agree that we’ve gotten ourselves in a lot of trouble in the past by jumping to judgement before walking through the valley of curiosity. Let’s start with questions, rather than answers, open minds rather than closed fists.

It’s also important to acknowledge that my perspective, as a Christian who practices yoga, is the not the same as other Christians or other yogis. And that’s ok. We are each made uniquely, express ourselves uniquely, and see the world and God uniquely. But let’s be clear from the start, different perspectives does not mean disunity or division.

Now that we’ve set some ground rules, let’s jump in!