Christianity, Chakras, and Separating the Baby from the Bathwater.

Recently, while preparing to teach my online course on energy and chakras, I found myself in the midst of a bit of controversy. When trying to study energy and the chakras from a Biblical perspective, I found very little research on the topic but instead stumbled on a whole lot of controversy. It’s ok. I am not new to this kind of controversy. As a Christian practitioner and teacher of yoga, I have seen this before.

To explain, most of the teachings on yoga, energy, and the chakras all have their historical origins in the East and have been explained primarily through an Eastern worldview. Because of this, many Christians have written these concepts off as occult or new age (or what I like to refer to as “woo woo”).

Beth Hovis writes in It’s not new, It’s true: Chakras and Christianity,

“One thing that many Christians have against chakras is the teaching of opening up and balancing our beings beginning at the root because the Hindu religion is part of the teaching…For our safety, God tells us not to worship Him the way that the other nations worship their gods.  And I am not telling you to ignore His warnings.” 

While I agree that Christians must be discerning when dealing with concepts that were birthed through another culture and worldview, I also believe that we should not be too quick to dismiss the wisdom found in these teachings. We should take care not to “throw the baby out with the bathwater” as the saying goes.

The fact that energy in the subtle body has primarily been studied in the East and taught from an Eastern worldview, does not disqualify this energy from being real or observations of energy in the body from being true. When approaching energy theories as a Christian, we would do well to practice discernment. In other words, we have to learn to separate the baby (wisdom) from the bathwater (worldview)!

This kind of discernment is found throughout the history of the Church. In her book Splankna: The Redemption of Energy Healing for the Kingdom of God, Sarah J. Theissen writes, “We would be hard-pressed to find anything that can trace its roots to purely biblical foundations. The entire field of medicine is rooted in the worship of Greek gods… Christians do not villainize the practice of modern medicine because of these philosophical origins”.

If we are to take a redemptive approach in this world, we must work at discerning, sifting, and separating concepts and observations about the world from the worldview through which they were discovered. So let us begin by diving into a couple of basic questions about energy and the chakras.

What is energy?

In order to understand the chakras, we must first take a moment to learn about the subtle body. Tias Little in his book, Yoga and the Subtle Body describes the subtle body as “that which is fine, delicate, and infinitesimally small such as an atomic particle”. The subtle body, as its name suggests, is the aspect of our being which cannot be seen by the naked eye. Composed of various layers called koshas, the subtle body is thought to hold our life force or vital energy which flows in a complex loop resembling rivers and streams weaving through, around, and beyond the physical body. Where these streams and rivers of energy converge, a chakra is found.

What is a chakra?

The word chakra, most often translated as “spinning wheel” does not refer to actual physical structures in the body but to swirls of energy created by energetic intersections within the subtle body.

As Chris Wallace points out in his article The Real Story on the Chakras, many traditions have taught about these energy centers thus making for many different chakra systems. The system most widely kown in the West is the seven-chakra system which became popular in the 16th century.

In this modernized chakra system, each chakra has been associated with a major endocrine gland as well as a major nerve plexus. The energy found in each chakra is thought to affect the systems that the glands and the nerves control. If the energy in a chakra becomes unbalanced, it can manifest as dis-ease.

 In more recent teachings, such as Anodea Judith’s books Wheels of Life and Eastern Body, Western Mind, each chakra is not only associated with certain bodily glands and functions, but they are also associated with certain elements, colors, minerals, specific herbs and foods, as well as various emotional, psychological, and spiritual states of being.

Why do we care about energy and the chakras?

So what do the chakras have to offer us? When we explore the concept of energy held in our subtle bodies we will find an ancient model of medicine that has been utilized effectively in other cultures for thousands of years. By becoming educated about the chakra systems we may just discover a potentially powerful means for balancing the nervous and endocrine systems and a new tool for establishing vitality in the body and mind. If we are serious about our well-being, it makes sense to glean wisdom from a model of health and wellness that has been utilized for ages!

But is exploring the Chakra system spiritually safe for Christians? 

It is true that the energy model of medicine reaches beyond merely the physical aspect of our being. Originally, the chakras were utilized as focal points for meditation with the intention of stimulating divine energies in different points of the subtle body. This system of health offers potential for healing on the physical, mental, AND spiritual levels.

There is good reason that Christians have avoided discussions around energy and the chakras. If you were to google these subjects, you would find numerous teachings from various worldviews ranging from Hindu to New Age. While evidence is growing pointing to the physical benefits of energy work in the body, the question of spiritual safety still lingers for many Christians.

Father Thomas Ryan discusses an important consideration in his writings on energy and the chakras. He reminds us that all of God’s creation can be used for good or for evil according to our will. He says,

“Whether this (energy awakening) is for good or evil is another question altogether… awakening may or may not bring about a deeper union with God, for union with God is effected through love and surrender and not simply through increased consciousness or awareness. The awakening experience can help one to bring greater energies into the service of love, but free will continues, and with it the possibility of misusing the considerable powers released for selfish motives.”

If we, as Christians, believe that ALL things were made by God for God’s purposes, then we must ask: How can energy be used for God’s purposes according to divine design?  How might the healing power of Jesus be found in the chakras?

In order to answer these questions, it is necessary that we practice discernment. We need to learn to separate observations about creation from the worldview in which they were discovered.  Essentially, it boils down to learning to separate the baby from the bathwater.

If we are successful, we might just receive the gift of a new model of health and wellness from the East. We might be able to experience the healing found in Christ in new and powerful ways. When studying energy and the chakras, we might experience the wonder of God’s glory, seeing the world with new eyes and catching a glimpse of the intricate design of his creation. We might find new meaning in the Holy Scriptures when they proclaim “I am fearfully and wonderfully made”. (Psalm 139:14)

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