The Subtle Body — Should Christians Practice Yoga?
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 Michelle Obama,