Give Thanks. Enjoy Life.

Sermon for North Hill Adventist Fellowship
November 27,2010
Preliminary draft

On Thanksgiving, I had one piece of pumpkin pie. It was perfect. It was enough. I did not eat a second piece because eating a second piece would have interfered with the memory the first piece.

I had one piece. And gave thanks. Gave thanks for the perfect crust. Gave thanks for the lush filling and the hand-whipped cream.

I gave thanks for my daughter, Bonnie, who grew the pumpkins, harvested them and transformed them into perfect pies. I gave thanks for my wife, Karin, who passed on the art of pie making to her daughters.

I gave thanks for the horses who created the manure which we used to fertilize the pumpkin plants.

I gave thanks for the dairy farmers who produced the milk Bonnie used in the pie filling and produced the cream we whipped and spooned on top the pie.

I gave thanks for the Mexicans who work at the dairies in our area. Their labor keeps our milk relatively cheap.

I gave thanks for the Native Americans who taught the early immigrants to America to eat and cultivate pumpkins.

I gave thanks for the generations of Native Americans stretching back through thousands of years who cultivated pumpkins. Without the farming practices of those people, pumpkins as we know them would not exist.

Then I gave thanks for the wheat farmers who produced the wheat that was used to make the perfect crust on this perfect pumpkin pie.

I even gave thanks for the corporations that delivered sugar and salt to our local grocery store. What would pumpkin pie be without sugar and salt? And who of us could produce our own sugar and salt?

Pumpkin pie. An exquisite occasion for giving thanks—thanks to God for creating pumpkins and Native Americans, my wife and my daughter, cows and agricultural corporations, the magic of seeds and photosynthesis.

What food gave you the most powerful impetus to give thanks?

Stuffing? Cranberries? Mashed potatoes? Yams with marshmellows? Salad with avocado and grapefruit? Martinelli's?

One of the highest forms of spiritual life is discerning the benevolent hand of God in the down-to-earth realities of life. When we receive good things as gifts, it is natural to give thanks to the giver. The more vividly we discern the benevolence of God, the kindness and generosity of God in the good things of life, the richer will be our joy.

This is one of the benefits God has in mind for us when he calls us to give thanks.

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.
Psalm 107:1 and Psalm 118:1; 29

Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done. Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts.
Psalm 105:1-2

When we obey the command to give thanks, we experience joy. In fact, giving thanks is one of the most potent sources of joy and happiness available to people. Thanking people for their kindness to us causes us to enjoy even more their kindness.

Thanking God for his kindness to us intensifies the pleasure his gifts bring into our lives.

So, give thanks to the Lord. . . . tell of all his wonderful acts.



The message about God's presence in the goodness that touches our lives is one of the central messages of the Bible.

One of the few stories about Jesus that is reported in all four gospels is the feeding of the 5000.

Jesus has headed out of town hoping for some quiet time away from the crowds, but the “bush telegraph” works too well. About the time Jesus and his disciples arrive for their time of retreat, the crowds show up. Jesus shelves his plans and turns his attention to needs of the people. He heals many. Preaches. The people are enthralled. They lose track of time. As sundown nears, Jesus talks to his disciples about dinner. What are we going to do for all these people?

The disciples have different strategies: send the people out to villages in the area so they can buy some food. Send some of the disciples go to the villages to buy food and have it carried back to the venue. Panic was an obvious option. There are 5000 hungry men there. The fact is there is no obvious workable solution.

Even if the disciples went into the nearby towns, could they possibly rustle up enough food for this crowd? Could they find people willing and able to do the transportation to bring sufficient food out from the villages? Not likely.

Jesus tells the disciples not to send the people out on their own. He's worried they might faint from hunger on the road.

Andrew speaks up and says, “I have found a young man who has five loaves and two fish.”

Let's see: Five thousand men. Five loaves. A thousand men per loaf. That was not likely to do much good. For Jesus it was enough.

He had the disciples seat the people in groups. Then Jesus gave thanks, broke the bread and had the disciples distribute it. He did the same with the fish. And all five thousand ate and were satisfied. They were stuffed to the gills.

Note: Jesus starts with a boy's lunch. Gives thanks to God for the food. Then feeds 5000.

I'm sure that Jesus and Andrew thanked the kid for his lunch. But what is mentioned in the story is that Jesus gave thanks to God.

Jesus had extraordinary vision. When he looked at that kid's lunch he saw God's provision for feeding 5000. And gave thanks.

When we eat the world's best pumpkin pie, it's a fairly natural instinct to give thanks to the person close at hand who created that masterpiece. It takes a more discerning eye to see that the skill and affection of that person are an expression of the creative intention and affection of God.

The foundation of our faith is the belief that God is the creator. Life flows from the intention and purpose of God.

When the Jewish people were rescued from slavery in Egypt and given the privilege of their own homeland in Palestine, God gave them very specific rituals to help them remember that the bounty of their harvests depended on God's benevolence as well as the skill and hard work of the farmer.

When the harvest was gathered in, the people were to take the first portion of the harvest and dedicate to God as a reminder of his involvement in their harvest. Now, it's important to recognize that to an unenlightened observer, God was completely invisible. Undetectable. If you were a plant scientist working in the days of Joshua, you would not be able to design and experiment to show that God was involved in Jewish agriculture. As Jesus reminded us: God sends his rain on the just and the unjust. God pours his creative power indiscriminately into our world.

God's benevolence is to human existence what water is to a fish. It is the reality we swim in, the reality we see in, the reality we breathe in. It is so much with us that we can miss it, unless we are looking specially for it.

Giving thanks is one of the most important ways we cultivate the ability to discern God's favor, God's benevolence and favor.

When we eat. Before we take the calories into our stomach, we pause to receive God's grace in our hearts. We give thanks for the food.

Maybe it's McDonald's take out.

Maybe it's world-class, home-made pumpkin pie.

Maybe it's a peanut butter sandwich we brought with us for lunch.

Whatever it is, we pause and for a moment focus on the grace God is pouring into our lives with this food. And the meal becomes an occasion of worship. The act of saying thanks for our food transforms the biological act of acquiring calories into a spiritual practice that opens us to God's presence and favor.


A couple of other points.

Giving thanks is a powerful statement to our own hearts that we have enough. And since we have enough, we move from hungering for what we do not have to savoring, to enjoying, to treasuring what we do have.

One piece of pumpkin pie fully savored brings more pleasure than a dozen pieces of pie eaten hurriedly or absent-mindedly. To fully picture the contrast, imagine the experience of people who participate in food-eating contests. How much pleasure does eating give to a person who is competing to see how many hot dogs or watermelons or pieces of pizza he can eat in five minutes?

Now imagine slowly eating a small bowl of ice cream sitting in the shade on a hot summer afternoon with a dear friend?

Which is a picture of heavenly pleasure? Which can teach us more about the presence and intentions of God? Which whispers to us of the eternal pleasures God has in mind for his people?

Gratitude is the ultimate protection against addiction. In addiction we pursue pleasure. In gratitude, we enjoy pleasure. To put it bluntly: gratitude is more fun. Vastly more fun. It is richer, sweeter, deeper, more exquisitely good.

Giving thanks can rescue us from the tyranny of greed, the restless drive for more. Of course, there is a place for striving to earn money, to build our retirement funds, to save for college or a down payment for a house. There is effort in caring for a garden that will produce a rich harvest. God blesses our efforts. We were made to strive and work.

And we were made to stop. To rest. To enjoy. To savor. To sit back and say, “It is enough. Thank you.”

“It is enough. I have enough.” These phrases describe one of the most blessed conditions of life. And learning to say thank you is one of the most powerful aids God has given us for entering that experience.

So, I join the psalmist in inviting you, “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good.”

Theology and Responding to Human Need

Sermon for North Hill, November 13, 2010

Very early in his ministry, Jesus and his friends were invited to a wedding. Jesus wasn't all that famous yet, so he didn't have crowds of people following him around. He and his friends showed up at the wedding and had a good time. Nothing really out of the ordinary. Then his mother comes over and whispers to him about a huge problem, a wedding-ruining problem. Decades of disgrace was hovering in the air, ready any minute to sweep down and bury the groom's father—and not just the groom's father. The groom's father and the groom. And the groom's uncles and cousins and grandfather and maybe even his brother's-in-law.

“Jesus,” Mary whispers, “they have run out of wine.”

Jesus whispers back, “What are you telling me for? This isn't my wedding. And this isn't the proper venue for launching the miracle-working aspect of my ministry. This is the wrong place and wrong time for me to do something dramatic.”

Jesus' mother nods and smiles and whispers in his ear. “I understand.” Then she walks back to the servants in the kitchen and pointing at Jesus, says, “Go, do whatever he tells you.”

The servants walk over to Jesus and stand with question marks on their faces.

What's Jesus to do?

Remember, he has already told his mother that God's plan for his life does not involve addressing the wine shortage. Jesus' exact words were: “Woman, what do I have to do with you? My time has not yet come.” I don't know how he could have been more explicit. Jesus was at the wedding as a guest. The wine problem—or lack-of-wine problem—was not his problem. His “time” was a schedule, a plan, that came from heaven. And that plan did not include working miracles at a wedding feast in Cana.

And there was his mother, in the kitchen watching him expectantly and two servants standing right next to him, waiting expectantly. And over there is the groom having a wonderful time visiting with his family and other guests, utterly oblivious to the fact that his family is about to experience the massive disgrace of running out of wine at his wedding.

What does Jesus do?

He pointed at pointed at six 25-gallon stone jars and whispered to the servants, “Go fill those jars with water.”

The servants went and filled the jars to the brim, then came back to Jesus. “Now what?”

“Pour a cup from the jars,” Jesus says, “and take it to the wedding master.”

The servants were astonished. No one ever served water at a feast. But Mary had told them to do whatever Jesus said, so they poured a cup and took it to the master of the feast. When he tasted the “water,” his eyes lit up. “Where did you get this?” he exclaimed. “This is fantastic!”

The servants merely pointed at the jars.

The wedding master called the groom over. “Young man, it is customary to serve your best wine at the beginning of a feast. Later, after people have been eating and drinking for awhile, then you bring out your cheaper stuff. You understand? But you've saved your best for last!”

The groom had no idea what the wedding master was talking about, but in that society, a young man did not challenge an older man. So the groom smiled and nodded deferentially then went back to his guests.


What does it mean? What does this story teach us?

The core of Jesus' ministry was responsiveness to down-to-earth human need. It's hard to imagine a more mundane, ordinary human need than the social obligation to provide adequate food and beverage for a wedding feast.

This means my work of studying Greek and reading commentaries and praying and meditating and finally standing here and preaching is no more “like Jesus” than is the work of the people who serve snacks in the kitchen after church.

Let's push it further. Those who clean the toilets and mow the lawn are copying Jesus every bit as realistically as are those who lead us in our worship music.

In fact, those who clean toilets and fix ballasts and pull weeds are more like Jesus in this story than preachers and musicians, because in this story, Jesus' work of providing hospitality is invisible. If you were making a movie you could not show the water turning to wine. That happened out of sight inside the jars. Jesus does not touch the water or the jars. None of his words explicitly speak about a miracle. In fact, the only words Jesus spoke explicitly addressing Mary's request for help were his statement that it wasn't his problem or the right time for him to act.

Jesus' ministry in this case was completely invisible. Like the volunteers who clean the bathrooms and pull weeds and do repairs. Like the people who give money to support our scholarship and assistance funds. Like the members who help people without fanfare or publicity, just responding to human need.


Many commentators over the centuries have written that the gospel of John is the most “spiritual” of the four gospels in the New Testament. Even today, people like to say that John's gospel is deeper, more profound, more concerned with the inner being than are the other gospels. This reputation makes our story all the more dramatic.

In this “most spiritual” of the gospels, the first dramatic miracle, the one that inaugurates Jesus ministry is not a miracle of healing.

It is not connected with a great preaching event.

It doesn't happen in synagogue.

It has nothing to do with defeating demons or “triumphing over the forces of darkness.”

Jesus does not pray before performing this miracle.

The miracle is not described as God's idea. It was not on Jesus' list of “things to do today.” In fact, Jesus performed the miracle under protest. Still he did it. In this most spiritual of all the gospels Jesus begins his ministry by providing wine for a wedding feast.

The heart of Jesus' ministry was responding to human need.

Listening to some Christians nowadays, you would think that Christianity was a particular theory regarding how people avoid going to hell. They insist the essence of the Christian message, its heart, is a very specific way of describing salvation. “Conservative Christians” readily condemn everyone who does not believe just as they do about various details of theological theory. They believe God will torture people forever and ever if people do not believe exactly the right things about how the Bible was written, about the nature of Christ, about the dates of creation and the end of the world, about the proper roles of behavior and faith in our relationship with God.

According to these “Real Christians,” salvation and the ministry of Jesus are about right theology, correct words, proper ideas.

The Gospel of John, the most spiritual of all gospels, the gospel that says the most about faith, disagrees. In John, the first sign of Jesus' power and authority as the Messiah is his willingness to bend “the plan of God” and provide wine for feast.

The same message comes through in several other passages in the gospel of John and in other books of the New Testament. In John 9, the bottom-line proof that Jesus is the Messiah--trumping all theological considerations--is healing of a man born blind.

In the gospel of Matthew, the grand climax of Jesus' sermon about the end of the world is the story of the sheep and goats. In that story, the judgment turns on one question: how did you respond to human need?

In Luke, right at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus stands up in his home town synagogue and reads from Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach good news to the poos, recovery of sight to the blind and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. Then he announces, “Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your ears.”

Theology, in the sense of words and theories about God, is subordinate to theology in the sense of life lived in the pattern of the God revealed in the life and teachings of Jesus.

Here at North Hill we want our mission to be like the mission of Jesus. We want to do everything we can to help people experience the good life that Jesus proclaimed. We want to respond to human need in a way that helps people live more holy, happy, healthy, harmonious lives.

Given the complexity and richness of Christian theology, for some of us, it's easy to become obsessed with “right words,” “right theology.” Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingle where leading theologians 500 years ago in the days of the Protestant Reformation. All of them played a role in helping the church escape the tyranny of Roman Catholic clergy control and the Catholic distortion of the good news of grace. But curiously each of these men vehemently denounced the other two. Their own unique understanding of just how it is that God pours his grace and love into our lives became the basis for condemning and rejecting those who saw it somewhat differently. For each of them, theological ideas became more important than connecting with real, live human beings.

Last week as I was researching my sermon on yoga I came across a web site devoted to intense study of Christian theology. The people on the web site were hyper vigilant against the slightest deviation from “the truth.” A number of them were severely critical of Billy Graham because he did not insist that Catholics who came to his meetings prove their devotion to Jesus by leaving the Catholic Church. The last word on the subject was this post: Anyone who is a friend of Billy Graham is no friend of mine.

Is this the community of love Jesus had in mind when he said the world would know we were his disciples by our love?

Theological obsession has often been a temptation for Adventists. Adventist theology is rich and coherent. It ties together so many things. It helps correct many scary ideas that are common in classic Christian theology. I like our theology. But the power and coherence of Adventist theology can lead us to idolize our theology. We can become so obsessed with our ideas that we fail to pay enough attention to real live human beings and their needs. Worse, we sometimes use our theology as a weapon against other people and churches.

In 1888, Adventist church leaders were fiercely divided in a dispute regarding the ten horns of Daniel 7: Which of two Germanic tribes that invaded the Roman Empire (the Huns or the Alemanni) fulfilled the prophecy? Really? We laugh now. But if we are not careful, we'll do the same thing in our world. Our certainty about the truthfulness and necessity of some point of Bible interpretation or theological conviction will drive us to anathematize everyone who doesn't see it our way. Right now Adventists risk doing this regarding the age of fossils. We judge people's integrity, intelligence and piety according to their opinions about when the dinosaurs lived. Really? Really.

This kind of thinking moves us away from the mission of Jesus as its is portrayed in the gospel of John. Jesus came on a theological mission. He came to make God known. And when the needs of a wedding feast conflicted with the formal plan for advancing that theology, Jesus set the plan and took care of the simple human need. In doing this, he defined theology in a new way. Theology is not best understood as a list of propositions about God. It is best understood as the way our status as children of God ought to inform our sense of identity and mission. As children of God we are dearly beloved. As children of God we are commanded to live out his values in this world, to make the values of the invisible God visible in our lives. (See Matthew 5:44-48 and James 1:27.)

This does not dismiss theology—that is discourse about God. However, it does strongly imply that living like God is more important than talking about God. And right action is more important than right theories. The greatest test of theology is whether or not it increases our compassion.

We can test our theology by assessing how it informs us when we confront these realities of the human condition:

The explosive growth of diabetes.
The scarcity of clean water.
Economic development among people groups that are chronically poor.
Education access.
Marital harmony.
The obesity epidemic.

If you find yourself looking for “real theology” in this list, if you miss debates about justification and sanctification, forensic vs. adoptionistic vs. moral influence vs. Arminian vs. Calvinistic vs. Lutheran soteriology, the story of John 2 (along with the messages of Matthew 25 and Luke 4) pointedly suggests that your theology is not really lined up with the mission of Jesus.

Perhaps Jesus has become a tool of your theology, a necessary cog in your theory of salvation. If that is so, perhaps it's time to allow Jesus to break out of the categories your theology has consigned him to. Perhaps it's time for conservative Christians to allow Jesus' teachings and pattern of ministry a greater role in forming our theology and shaping our mission as the family of God.

Is Yoga Demonic?

Sermon for North Hill, November 6, 2010


Recently, the Seattle Times ran an article on its front page: Yoga: Is it demonic?

The article was provoked by the publication of a paper by the head of the Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, and by a statement by Mark Driscoll, senior pastor of Mars Hill Church, the most visible mega-church in the Seattle area.

Someone asked Driscoll, “Should Christians avoid yoga because of its demonic origins?” Mark's answer was an emphatic yes. If fact, he said, “If you sign up for a little yoga class, you are signing up for a little demon class.”

Driscoll's reasoning went like this: Yoga originated among Hindus and it is thoroughly entwined with Hindu religion and philosophy. Since Hinduism is pantheistic or panentheistic, yoga must be evil.

Given Driscoll's visibility in our area and the fact that a number of North Hill members practice yoga, I thought it would be worthwhile to examine the question.

The principles and Bible passages we'll examine in connection with yoga will apply to other areas of life as well.


John 1

Jesus meets Philip shortly after his baptism and invites Philip to follow him. Philip accepts the invitation. Almost immediately, he is so impressed with what he experiences in Jesus' presence that he goes off to find his friend Nathanael. “Nathanael,” Philip says, “we have found the one Moses wrote about, the one the prophets wrote about—Jesus of Nazareth.”

Nathanael laughs, “How could anything good come out of Nazareth?” If this guy you're talking about comes from Nazareth, there's no way he could be the Messiah. We know what kind of place Nazareth is. And it doesn't produce good people.”

What was Philip's answer to Nathanael's challenge?

“Come and see.”

John intends his readers to understand Philip's answer to Nathanael as the right answer to questions about spiritual reality. Don't get lost in arguments about history or mysterious, secret symbols or obscure genealogies. As a Christian who has been promised the guidance of the Holy Spirit, you can safely check things out for yourself. Come and see.

Nathanael's question would have been a perfect set up for John to give us information about the real origin of Jesus. Jesus isn't really from Nazareth. Jesus isn't really a Galilean. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the royal city. But John completely ignores the question of Jesus' earthly origin. If we had only the gospel of John as our source of information about Jesus, we would know nothing about the virgin birth or Bethlehem or Jesus genealogical connection with King David. John does not invite us to examine Jesus' ancestry or birthplace. John wants us to directly engage with Jesus. John wants us to follow Philip's advice to Nathanael: Come and see. This is a major theme in the Gospel of John.

In Chapter 4, Jesus has a conversation with a non-Jewish woman. After she visits with Jesus for a while at a place called Jacob's Well, she goes back into town and urges everyone to come meet Jesus. “Come see the man who knows my story. Come and see.”

Yes, the man is Jewish she says (that is from a people that are hostile to the Samaritan people and religion), still, she insists, just come and see. The woman is confident that if the people will just meet Jesus, they will come to the same conclusion she has. Come and see.

In chapter 7, the religious leaders, the people charged with conserving the faith and heritage of the people, decide they have to bring Jesus in for a formal inquiry. He is stirring up the people. He's creating a dangerous enthusiasm. The leaders send the police to arrest Jesus and bring him to the council. The police go, but they are so enthralled by Jesus' teaching (and I think, perhaps, intimidated by the massive crowd) that they come back to the council without Jesus. When the leaders ask incredulously, “Why didn't you bring him in?” the police answer, “No one ever spoke like this man!”

The implication behind their words: You would have to there. We can't describe what we experienced.

The leaders berate the police. “What! You mean this charlatan has deceived you, too! Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees—the religious conservatives—believed in him? No! But this mob that knows nothing of the Bible—a curse on them!”

Nicodemus spoke up. Does our law condemn someone before hearing him?

Notice the leaders' response: Are you a Galilean, too? Check it out and you'll see that prophets don't come from Galilee, and especially not THE prophet.

The religious leaders rejected Jesus, not because they had examined his character and teachings but because of they know about his origin. He came from Galilee. That's all they need to know.

Since Jesus had roots among the unsophisticated, ethnically-mixed, religiously-lax people of Galilee, he could not possibly be the Messiah. In fact, these leaders believed Jesus' roots in Galilee were sufficient cause to reject everything he taught. According to these angry critics, there could be no prophetic (i.e. authoritative) word from someone with Galilean roots.

Again, this would have been a perfect place in the story for John to have defended Jesus by explaining that before he lived in Galilee, Jesus had lived in Egypt. And before he lived in Egypt, he had been born in Bethlehem. John could have argued that Jesus' genealogical pedigree was as impressive as anyone's on the council. But John refused to go there. John's convictions about Jesus were not primarily rooted in prophecy or ancient scripture. John had spent time with Jesus. That direct engagement eclipsed all the theoretical underpinnings for Jesus claim to Messianic identity.

This direct engagement comes to a most dramatic climax in John 9. Jesus and his disciples came across a man who had been born blind. Jesus healed him. When the conservatives called the man in for questioning, they insisted they didn't know where Jesus was from implying that this was somehow very important. The man scoffs at their professed ignorance. Their professed lack of knowledge is utterly irrelevant.

The formerly blind man says, “Here's what I know: I was blind and now I see.” You birthers can go bury yourself in a library searching old records and fuzzy copies. I'm not going to waste my time. I was blind and now I see. That much I know for sure. And it is enough.

The gospel of John reassures us that we don't have to be experts in secret history. We don't have to know about hidden mysteries. If we are open to God, God will make himself known. We can God's guidance as we engage life. We do not have to be afraid that somehow the Devil is going to sneak in and deceive us. According to John the greatest threat to spiritual life is excessive caution, being closed to the leading and work of the Holy Spirit. In John's gospel, the people who are “deceived” are not tricked by the Devil, but blinded by their stubborn rejection of God's new work which does not fit their ancient prejudices.

With this study of the Gospel of John as our starting point, let's ask the question about yoga: is yoga good or bad?

The obvious first question is what do we mean by “yoga.”

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Yoga (with a capital “Y”) is a Hindu theistic philosophy teaching the suppression of all activity of body, mind, and will in order that the self may realize its distinction from them and attain liberation.

If that is what you mean by yoga, then Driscoll would be right to base his evaluation of yoga on theological/philosophical concepts. However, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary offers a second definition: yoga is “a system of exercises for attaining bodily or mental control and well-being.”

It is yoga in this second sense that I want to evaluate.

I'll begin with my own story.

A few years ago something went wrong with my right shoulder. I went to my regular doctor then to a sports medicine specialist. Went through the usual diagnostics. Had an MRI. Had an injection that “might” help. It didn't. Went to a chiropractor who helped ease the pain a little. Still I was chased from bed every morning by pain. Outdoor work at home and here at church hurt. I figured I'd live with chronic pain the rest of my life. Then I started doing a few exercises I found in a yoga book. Over the next couple of years I did my yoga routine every morning. After awhile I noticed the pain was diminished. Then months later it was almost completely gone. I could sleep in on my days off. Finally, just this week I pitched ten pounds of hay overhand across a fence into one of the horse stalls. As I did it, I suddenly realized, Wow! That didn't hurt! My shoulder is working!

Those of you who deal with chronic pain can imagine how happy I am with my new pain-free existence.

So when I hear someone like Mark Driscoll or other religious leaders going on about the evils of yoga . . . Yoga was invented by pantheistic Hindus. Yoga teaches you to look within yourself and we're supposed to look outward to Jesus. Yoga postures are opening you up to demons. . . . I just smile and say, I don't know about all that. This I know. I was in pain. Constant, incurable pain. And now I am pain free.

A critic who observed my yoga routine might argue that what I do is not “real yoga” because in addition to postures taught by the yoga book, I do postures I made up myself. And I throw in a bit of weight training as well.

Why not just call what I do “exercises” instead of yoga? Because the book that got me started was a book of yoga postures. The classes I have attended are called yoga classes. The teachers who have helped me are trained yoga teachers. It is a simple matter of respect to acknowledge the help I have received.

I was in pain and now I am pain free. And yoga played a major role in the wonderful change that I have experienced.

Now, I freely acknowledge that my experience with yoga is not all there is to consider. The few classes I have attended have not involved any rituals that appeared to be religious. There has been no chanting, no images. The classes have consisted of cycles of physical exertion and rest. Period. However, just a couple of weeks ago a friend told me that she started attending a yoga class looking for help with some physical problems. The instructor asked the class to chant with her. When my friend looked up the meaning of the words she was chanting, she discovered they were the names of Hindu gods. So, of course, she quit doing that.

Let's push a little further: can a practice that originated in a non-Christian or even anti-Christian environment be helpful and appropriate for Christians?

Yes. Emphatically, yes.

The Gospel of Matthew makes quite a point of highlighting the contribution that non-Jewish peoples and nations made to Jesus' story. When Jesus parents flee to Egypt to avoid Herod's slaughter of the infants, Matthew remarks, “This happened to fulfill the prophecy, 'Out of Egypt have I called my son.'” Notice, Egypt, the historical “land of slavery” has now, in Jesus' story, become a sanctuary, a place of refuge. Egypt, the land of false religion, the home of the worship of the sun god, is not described the place of Jesus.

Then Matthew reports on the visit of the Magi. These were deeply spiritual people in the tradition of Babylon and Persia. Some Christian critics of yoga scornfully point to yoga's connection with the ancient apostasy of Babylon and Persia, thinking this proves that Christians should have nothing to do with yoga. However, the first gifts Jesus received was from representatives of that very religion. And Jesus did not scorn their gifts.

So when we receive gifts from the realm of yoga, we are merely following in the pattern already set in the story of Jesus.

The dominant message of the Bible is God's penchant for redeeming, for drawing back into the center of his beneficent will, all people and all things that have been eccentric to his will.

In the Bible, Babylon first appears as an enemy of God's people. Then it becomes the place where God finally manages to cure his people of idolatry. Babylon is where the synagogue, the church as a center of Bible study, first came into existence. Before the Jews went to Babylon they did not have a culture of Bible study outside the temple in Jerusalem. And it isn't clear that there was a culture of study even in the Jerusalem temple. That changed in Babylon.

In Isaiah, the king of Babylon is described in such colorfully negative language that it has traditionally been interpreted as a metaphorical picture of the Devil. Then the prophet Daniel includes the personal conversion testimony of the king of Babylon—the most dramatic conversion story in all of Scripture, eclipsing even the conversion of the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus.

When we evaluate yoga, we ought to root our assessment in present reality, not in history. This can get complicated because yoga, like Christianity, is highly varied.

Mark Driscoll is a Christian.
The pope is a Christian.
Jehovah's Witnesses are Christians.
George Bush is a Christian.
Barack Obama is a Christian.
Hillary Clinton is a Christianity
Glenn Beck is a Christian.
Robert Yates (a serial killer) is a Christian.

Based on this list of Christians how could you offer a single, simple answer to a question about whether Christianity is good, bad or indifferent. You can't. So with yoga. When someone asks you about yoga, you have to ask what yoga they have in mind. What book are they referring to? What class? What teacher? What practice? Some yoga instructors teach their students to chant praises to Hindu gods as part of their yoga practice. Others make no reference to any kind of religious practice or ideology.

In 1 Corinthians 8, the Apostle Paul addresses a question that has direct bearing on our topic. Meat was used in the rituals in pagan temples. Then that meat was available for people to eat—either given away or sold. The question arose, could Christians eat the meat.

Paul replies that it's a complicated question because two principles are involved—regard for the tender consciences of other people and the reality of a genuine spiritual connection between the pagan deities worshiped in the temples and the meat that was available for Christians to eat.

On the second point, Paul is emphatic. Even though the meat has come straight from pagan sacrifice in a temple devoted to a pagan God, Christians can eat the food without swallowing the devil. There is no spiritual defilement present in the food. The food is food. Period. For Christians, there is no inherent risk eating food that has been involved in demonic worship.

To apply this to yoga: there is no inherent risk in using postures that were brought into the market place of ideas and health practices from non-Christian worship systems. Just as Christians in Paul's day would not have in any way pledged allegiance to the deities in the temples where the meat originated, so Christians today will refuse to pay obeisance to Hindu deities. That does not mean we cannot received with gratitude the physical blessings that are available through yoga (Romans 14:6). In fact, we ought to receive such blessings and give thanks to God.

The gospels make it abundantly clear that Jesus desired the physical well-being of people. When we provide medical care or instruction in healthy living to people, we are cooperating with Jesus in his mission. When we participate in practices that support and improve health—things like good nutrition, exercise—and yes, yoga—we are cooperating with Jesus in his work in our lives. Jesus desires our future joy in eternity. Yes, of course. He also wants us to enjoy maximal well-being here and now. If you find that yoga decreases your pain, increases your flexibility and balance and strength, then by all means do it. If the book or teacher you are learning from asks you to do something that contradicts the lordship of Jesus, then by all means don't.

Come to think of it that is how we ought to engage with all of life, including preachers like Mark Driscoll and John McLarty. Take the good stuff God offers through their words and wisely reject their errors.