recently I heard of a local church where a group of ladies, members of the church, who wanted to conduct yoga classes in the churches facilities as a mid week event for outreach. The Pastor of the church ended up rejecting this idea sighting the roots of yoga and the counter-christian spiritual focuses people surround it as his reasons.
There is a level where I understand the reasons yet Christianity has embraced many pagan systems from Christmas trees to wedding rings and we are all the better for it. Today we don't associate these symbols with their pagan roots and we have redefined them to suit Christianity. But at one point the church did adopt these things and there was controversy over them.
Many times adopting these customs helped the pagans to keep their cultures and still become Christian; a contextualization method. However today we cringe at the thought of these modern pagan forms coming into our churches (but they are ok at home). I say we contextualized in the past and were able to create some powerful symbols for Christianity so why are we so uptight about it today?
There is a level where I understand the reasons yet Christianity has embraced many pagan systems from Christmas trees to wedding rings and we are all the better for it. Today we don't associate these symbols with their pagan roots and we have redefined them to suit Christianity. But at one point the church did adopt these things and there was controversy over them.
Many times adopting these customs helped the pagans to keep their cultures and still become Christian; a contextualization method. However today we cringe at the thought of these modern pagan forms coming into our churches (but they are ok at home). I say we contextualized in the past and were able to create some powerful symbols for Christianity so why are we so uptight about it today?