Perspective on Eastern healing arts, i.e. yoga and tai chi

[Healing with Jesus]

So, first a little background.

I've been struggling with my health ever since I had my third baby in October. I had very severe health problems after delivery and needed to be hospitalized. For weeks, I wasn't even sure I would make it. Whenever anyone said, "God's will be done," it sounded like a death sentence to me. I was OK with that, except that would leave my husband behind to raise the kids alone. Praise God, He pulled me out of that acute health scare. However, my long-term health is now suffering. I have terrible blood sugar issues. Sometimes they're high, and then they plummet quite low. According to my healthcare team, in addition to dietary management, well-timed physical activity is important for this condition.

So I began looking for ways to be physically active and remembered some tai chi exercises that I used to do. I started doing these on a regular basis a few weeks ago. Then, just yesterday, I got a check in my spirit that these may not be good for a Christian to do. So I did a little research and I found this podcast by Pastor John Piper. It is transcribed, which is wonderful for people who are deaf, hard of hearing, or have a hard time processing information given by audio. I like to play it and read the words at the same time.

https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/is-yoga-sinful

I really like the way he presents the issue, non-legalistically, but Christ-centeredly. I found this excerpt to be helpful:

"[T]he other approach is not to ask, 'What is wrong with it?' mainly, but, 'Will it make me more Christlike? Will it make me more devoted to Jesus? Will I be more powerful and full of the Holy Spirit? Will I be more effective in prayer because of it? Will it make me more bold in witness or weaken me? Will it help me be spiritually discerning of the ways of Satan in the world and will it help me lay up treasures in heaven? Will it help me find joy in God and all that he is for me in Jesus?'"

As you'll see at the end of the podcast, he summarizes by saying:

"[Y]oga and tai chi ... have run up the flag of the eastern worldview by the very name yoga and tai chi. So for my money at this point, as I assess maximizing rather than minimizing my pursuit of God’s goals and the flourishing of my own soul, I would go another way and find another kind of exercise."

Now I don't agree with everything I read online, but this sits right with me. So, I am prayerfully seeking another form of exercise. One that I can do just 15 or so minutes a day, just enough to get in a little bit of better shape, but not so much that it becomes an idol. And certainly not something that is steeped in a harmful worldview.

I wanted to share this to bring this to your attention so that you may be encouraged. I know that practices like tai chi and yoga are present in many of our daily lives, and we must be aware of their origins and meanings before we participate in these things.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Then, just yesterday, I got a check in my spirit that these may not be good for a Christian to do. So I did a little research and I found this podcast by Pastor John Piper.

Alert: your "check in your spirit" should have sounded like a loud fire alarm clanging when you listened to that podcast. Look online if you care, that one has been exposed as a false teacher many times.

 

[Healing with Jesus]

Alert: your "check in your spirit" should have sounded like a loud fire alarm clanging when you listened to that podcast. Look online if you care, that one has been exposed as a false teacher many times.

I don't agree with everything he teaches, but nothing jumps out at me in this specific teaching. What does he say that's false here?

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

I don't agree with everything he teaches, but nothing jumps out at me in this specific teaching. What does he say that's false here?

He preaches a false gospel. Do not trust anything, directly nor indirectly. See online if you require more evidence. (not for this forum)

 

[Unofficial Reverand Alex]

I don't know anything about this preacher or podcast, but I've done yoga & tai chi before (and meditations), and I've found them all to be quite helpful for physical healing & feeling well. It can be a very spiritual experience if you make it; when meditations discuss "Seeing a white light", think of it as the Holy Spirit. Yoga, by its nature of standing there for awhile, is a great way to make prayer time, along with physical well-being.

Oh, and by the way, my great-aunt is a nun, and she does yoga & tai chi daily, along with other sisters in her convent, so I'd say that there's no problem. I think a lot of the fear of these eastern medicines is just overblown fear of something that doesn't matter that much. Playing sports is good exercise, but if the same logic was applied to sports as is often applied to eastern exercise, then a strong case could be made that playing sports is letting yourself get pulled into a hedonistic, entertainment-centric secular culture.

God be with you.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Then, just yesterday, I got a check in my spirit that these may not be good for a Christian to do.

This is even more important as you grow in Christ, and you will find out that many many well-wishers are traps, attempts to provide something "instead of" Christ that seems harmless, or seems "good" because of their worldly reputation, but those things that man (even religious man) highly esteems, God calls abhorrent. (Important to remember).

Jesus said He will never leave nor forsake His followers/ disciple, so trusting in His Promise you can rely on the Father to continually watch over you/us all His children/ Ekklesia/ and to direct your steps His Way, Perfectly.

 

[FutureAndAHope]

So, first a little background.

I've been struggling with my health ever since I had my third baby in October. I had very severe health problems after delivery and needed to be hospitalized. For weeks, I wasn't even sure I would make it. Whenever anyone said, "God's will be done," it sounded like a death sentence to me. I was OK with that, except that would leave my husband behind to raise the kids alone. Praise God, He pulled me out of that acute health scare. However, my long-term health is now suffering. I have terrible blood sugar issues. Sometimes they're high, and then they plummet quite low. According to my healthcare team, in addition to dietary management, well-timed physical activity is important for this condition.

So I began looking for ways to be physically active and remembered some tai chi exercises that I used to do. I started doing these on a regular basis a few weeks ago. Then, just yesterday, I got a check in my spirit that these may not be good for a Christian to do. So I did a little research and I found this podcast by Pastor John Piper. It is transcribed, which is wonderful for people who are deaf, hard of hearing, or have a hard time processing information given by audio. I like to play it and read the words at the same time.

https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/is-yoga-sinful

I really like the way he presents the issue, non-legalistically, but Christ-centeredly. I found this excerpt to be helpful:

"[T]he other approach is not to ask, 'What is wrong with it?' mainly, but, 'Will it make me more Christlike? Will it make me more devoted to Jesus? Will I be more powerful and full of the Holy Spirit? Will I be more effective in prayer because of it? Will it make me more bold in witness or weaken me? Will it help me be spiritually discerning of the ways of Satan in the world and will it help me lay up treasures in heaven? Will it help me find joy in God and all that he is for me in Jesus?'"

As you'll see at the end of the podcast, he summarizes by saying:

"[Y]oga and tai chi ... have run up the flag of the eastern worldview by the very name yoga and tai chi. So for my money at this point, as I assess maximizing rather than minimizing my pursuit of God’s goals and the flourishing of my own soul, I would go another way and find another kind of exercise."

Now I don't agree with everything I read online, but this sits right with me. So, I am prayerfully seeking another form of exercise. One that I can do just 15 or so minutes a day, just enough to get in a little bit of better shape, but not so much that it becomes an idol. And certainly not something that is steeped in a harmful worldview.

I wanted to share this to bring this to your attention so that you may be encouraged. I know that practices like tai chi and yoga are present in many of our daily lives, and we must be aware of their origins and meanings before we participate in these things.

I think you are 100% right to keep away from Yoga and tai chi, both involve a spiritual element, and it is not a Christ centred element. So although the practices have come from man, any false man made, not God made practice or spirituality becomes embodied by Satan. We have to ask our selves do we seek to glorify a spirituality that is not of God. Certainly not. For we are inadvertently glorifying Satan. Be it the energy flow of tai chi, or the Mystic powers of Yoga. You are wise to keep away from it all.

 

[Kit Sigmon]

Yoga or tai chi exercises can be done without the other side of it....
great many people have done some style of yoga and or tai chi moves and
not know it...physical education one got in school uses various forms
of it without the other elements of it.

There people teaching it plain, meaning just the movements/exercises.

 

[ValleyGal]

Eastern medicine appears mystical and new age to those who are raised in a Euro-western culture. But just as theirs seems mystical here among Christians, our medicine seems likely just as mystical to them. In reality, it's just another way of understanding body health. The Bible says we need to care for our body. The Bible says we should be meditative. So.. use these slow movements and poses to strengthen your body, and to strengthen your spirit by meditating on the Lord.

As for Piper, I don't necessarily agree with everything he says, yet I have much respect for him and his deep faith. Your first quote asks several questions like "will it make me more like Christ..." For all those questions, the answer is "it can if you focus on him." The second quote summarized as whether or not it will maximize God's goals and the flourishing of my own soul can be answered by questioning whether you can share the gospel with those you work out with, or how much can your soul flourish if you have a healthy temple and pray or meditate - that will make your soul flourish.

 

[Healing with Jesus]

He preaches a false gospel. Do not trust anything, directly nor indirectly. See online if you require more evidence. (not for this forum)

Thank you, brother, for your correction. I had no idea he was preaching a works-based salvation gospel. If I had known that, I wouldn't have quoted him, as fresh and salt water do not flow from the same spring. I had listened to him years ago, and sometimes he rubbed me the wrong way, but I didn't know he was so far gone in salvation. We may all disagree about many things theologically, but salvation is one thing that is far too important to be wrong about.

This is even more important as you grow in Christ, and you will find out that many many well-wishers are traps, attempts to provide something "instead of" Christ that seems harmless, or seems "good" because of their worldly reputation, but those things that man (even religious man) highly esteems, God calls abhorrent. (Important to remember).

Jesus said He will never leave nor forsake His followers/ disciple, so trusting in His Promise you can rely on the Father to continually watch over you/us all His children/ Ekklesia/ and to direct your steps His Way, Perfectly.

I think you are 100% right to keep away from Yoga and tai chi, both involve a spiritual element, and it is not a Christ centred element. So although the practices have come from man, any false man made, not God made practice or spirituality becomes embodied by Satan. We have to ask our selves do we seek to glorify a spirituality that is not of God. Certainly not. For we are inadvertently glorifying Satan. Be it the energy flow of tai chi, or the Mystic powers of Yoga. You are wise to keep away from it all.

I agree with both of you. And this is based on my personal experience. I felt compelled to share Piper's perspective to justify my own, but seeing that his teachings must be discarded, let me explain my own experience.

Before I was saved nearly 10 years ago, I was doing yoga and tai chi daily. I was into the "flow" of the world. I was connected to "energy" which I saw as perfectly divine. I even believed in God and saw Jesus as a great teacher, and I even believed that He was God's only begotten son. I was neck-deep in various sins, but didn't see anything as inherently evil since I believed that I wasn't hurting anybody.

Right before I was saved, I asked the woman who pointed me toward Jesus if I could keep doing yoga. I asked her this before I accepted Jesus as my Savior, since it may have been a deal-breaker for me at the time. Yoga and feeling connected were quite important to me. She said as long as I did everything to glorify God, it would be fine. Well, I don't agree with that now, but if she had said something different, I may not have made the decision to trust in Jesus as my savior that day.

Since then, I die to myself a little more every day. A tiny, tiny bit, only as much as God allows me. Sometimes entire limbs are cut off, sometimes just a single hair or a shred of dignity. My utmost goal is to be obedient, but not so that I may say I am, but because I am a sinner and in complete need of God's mercy. He is the Almighty.

It would be foolish of us to use earthly understanding to justify our practices, even if they are strictly for the body. After all, we will be resurrected with bodies, so the body has an importance.

Here is what I have noticed about yoga and tai chi. When I practice them, I become much more aware of myself. It is tuning one into one's breath and internal energy flow. Whatever we focus on, we become. So, meditation on self begets more self. Is this to say that I'm going to develop a Christian exercise program so that I honor Christ through my fitness routine? I don't think it's necessary to be so legalistic. But, if I do a more science-based exercise program, it is just about doing movements and breathing to help oxygen flow to my muscles. As opposed to being based in a worldview that, in the case of yoga, honors Hindi deities or, in the case of tai chi, seeks to become part of the flow / tao that underlies all earthly principles (yin / yang, etc.).

Of course, anything can become an idol. Even something as wholesome as eating well or playing a team sport. That's not what I'm talking about. That is an entirely different, and important, issue.

Many, many things masquerade as harmless that are not, if we are to think of them from the perspective of the spirit world. Have you read the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis? To borrow this style, for a moment, I think this is something we'd see if a Christian started practicing tai chi or yoga.

My dear Wormwood,

I am delighted to hear that your patient has begun a daily practice of doing tai chi. We have won many a Christian over to our father below [the devil] through these wonderful exercises. Men and women throughout the ages have done similar exercises without knowing they were embodying the oneness of the tao. However, your patient knows very well they come from a worldview that is entirely contrary to what Jesus taught, and he continues to do them.

Keep prompting him to practice these calming exercises, so that he seeks peace and tranquility through his breath and bodily movements. Remember, every time he seeks peace and tranquility from the Enemy [meaning God] or that wretched work known as the Bible, we have lost a little bit of his soul. By keeping him focused on his body and breath, we will have evermore a hold on him, and it is even possible that he will lose his faith in the Enemy to provide him with all that he needs.

Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape

For your reference: http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/arts/lit/PDFs/ScrewtapeLetters_CSL.pdf