Yoga and demons (supposedly)

I recently saw a posting on FB about a person who argued that Christians should not do yoga.

The reasoning is that Yoga is a spiritual practice intertwined with Hinduism. So, if a Christian practiced Yoga, then he or she opened the door to the Hindu gods (I.e., demons) coming inside them. The same applied if one did parts of Yoga, opening shakras.

The example of proof of this was anecdotal. Specifically, the author had a handful of healing prayer encounters with Christian Yoga practitioner who had demonic pain. This was relieved when the people renounced Yoga in combination with Christian prayer.

Let’s unpack this.

First, if Yoga opened the door to demonic pain, then this should be far more evident and widespread. There are so many practitioners of Yoga. I’ve done a bit of it myself a few years back. 

The evidence seems point the other way, that Yoga relieves pain by stretching and loosening the muscles and ligaments. This is a good health practice.

Second, there is a Biblical debate that’s weirdly on point - eating food offered before idols.

Food offered before idols, it was believed, empowered the food with the presence of deity before whom the food was offered. So, if a person infested the food, doesn’t that person “allow” the deity into themselves? This viewpoint is articulated in 1 Cor. 8:7, where Paul writes, “Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food they think of it as having been sacrificed to a god, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled.”

Hey, aren't you just inviting demons to literally defile you? This article on Yoga makes a similar point.

Well, the Apostles disagreed about this. The Council of Jerusalem, led by Peter, declared that people should abstain from food polluted by idols. (Acts 15:20). The Apostle John articulated a similar position. He refers to it as a sin taught by Balak and Jezebel (Rev. 2:14, 20).

The Apostle Paul took a strong stance and says these people have a weak conscience. (1 Cor. 8:7). He explains that, “But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.”

In and of itself, Yoga poses do not bring people closer to God. I hedge, as I think there is a spiritual link of mind and body. A healthier body will have a healthier spirit. 

But is it spiritually defiling? The first point above undercuts that it spiritually defiles people.

Third, let’s take an entirety different viewpoint. This will actually The subtext of the author’s perspective is one of the superiority of Christianity over Hinduism. The gods of Hinduism are actually demons as they latch on to you with the Hindu practice of Yoga. Or, restated, no part of Jesus can be found in Yoga.

This is a classic viewpoint of Christian exclusivity and superiority. It can lead to very unhealthy and unloving results. Many of the problems of Christianity stem from a warped sense of good and evil in the world. This emanates from believing themselves to have moral and spiritual superiority and “nonchristians” are morally and spiritually inferior.

I will unpack this in later posts.

Demons enjoy Christian judgmentalism. That needs to be considered in claims like Yoga brings in demons.