Dr Paul Allen

The practice of meditation in its many forms (transcendental, mindful, body scan, awareness, zen, etc.) has suddenly metastasized into a lucrative industry, assimilated by Western corporate conglomerates. Even the marines are taking a stab at the practice. The frenetic noisiness of modern life has fertilized the market for a new crop of meditation apps (e.g. Headspace and Calm), productivity pundits (e.g. Leo Babauta of zen habits(dot)net fame) and business section bestsellers aimed at secular readership (e.g. 10% Happier by Dan Harris and conclusions in Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss). Some Christians, who are rightly wary of imbibing any gateway drug to New Age worldviews or practices, are curious about the intersection of Eastern-origin and biblical meditation.  “Is it permissible for Christians to engage in meditation?” And the answer is… Let’s define our terms.  Meditation is a biblical term, used 22 times in the Hebrew Old Testament. Here’s a smattering of exampl...

Image via Wikipedia When Christians practice yoga, they must either deny the reality of what yoga represents or fail to see the contradictions between their Christian commitments and their embrace of yoga. The contradictions are not few, nor are they peripheral. Some questions we ask today would simply baffle our ancestors. When Christians ask whether believers should practice yoga, they are asking a question that betrays the strangeness of our current cultural moment — a time in which yoga seems almost mainstream. It was not always so . No one tells the story of yoga in the West better than Stefanie Syman, whose recent book,  The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America , is a masterpiece of cultural history . Syman, an engaging author who is also a fifteen-year devotee of yoga, tells this story well.  Her book actually opens with a scene from this year’s annual White House Easter Egg Roll . President Barack Obama made a few comments and then introduced First Lady Michell...