Our phrasing of “Christians Practicing Yoga” is very intentional. After a long discussion about semantics, the phrase “Christians Practicing Yoga” was our first choice. 

Why? 

Simply put, “Christians Practicing Yoga” reflects best who we are. We are Christians who practice and often teach yoga. Some of us teach yoga with an explicitly Christian focus in class, some of us don’t, and some of us do both. Some of us call it Christian Yoga, others of us adamantly do not. The phrase “Christians Practicing Yoga” is an umbrella for all of these versions.

Whichever phrase we use, we have no desire to “christianize” yoga. We honor yoga’s cultural and philosophical roots, and we study these roots alongside our own Christian tradition. Practicing yoga has actually invited us into a deeper faith and understanding of an embodied spirituality--a way of experiencing God in the same way in which God comes to us: in and through a body. 

It is our desire to learn from yoga, not co-opt yoga into our own thing. Despite the benefits of living in a globalized culture, where many of us can easily encounter the beauty of other cultures, we understand that the precursor to globalization was (and sometimes still is) colonization—where one culture has power and dominion over another. The role Christians played and still play in colonization, the sword with which Christians wielded/wield religion, frequently did and do more harm than good. In light of our history, we believe it is our obligation to honor that which was previously exploited. Rather than colonize yoga, co-opting it for our own purposes, it is our desire to learn from yoga, to celebrate the ways in which it complements and differs from our Christian faith.

Given our denominational and geographic diversity, it’s natural that we diverge on our understandings of Christian tradition and practice. Still, we have built enough trust among our writers and board to respectfully point out unconscious biases in our writing or teaching; we challenge each other to examine our perspectives and how those influence our work. Within the blog, social media, and contact forms on the site, we invite our readers to do the same. We expect this to continue, and we welcome it, just as iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17). We are learning just how high and how wide and how deep is the love of God for all of us (Ephesians 3:18). There are more areas of common ground than difference. In this, our integration is not syncretism—it is interfaith dialogue.