Maybe take a scan through this mefi post?

tldr: Yoga is a Hindu tradition. So, not so good for Christians to be practising (so the argument goes.)

Well, yoga is a Hindu religious practice. In a lot of Western countries it's been dissociated from its roots and is thought of as a fitness routine, maybe with a little bit of mindfulness involved, but it was not originally a secular thing. There's even a movement now to "take yoga back" and reclaim its spiritual roots.

Also, I can understand why an evangelical church would take issue with yoga. There are definitely things said by instructors in yoga classes which, even if they have nothing to do with Hinduism, lead in sort of a belief direction that is definitely not Christian in its outlook.

My brother and I enjoy watching the latest iterations of the non-mainline evangelical churches and their programs, and seeing what these churches will come up with next in their quest to develop a parallel and bizarro world of "Christian alternatives" to everything else. There is even a Christian alternative to Slow Food called something like My Father's Table, and there are Christian Scouting groups, sports leagues, etc.

That whole spiritual aspect was about all my wife and I could think of, though neither of us have tried yoga, so we had no clue if it was particularly emphasized in most yoga classes. I guess the implication of any non-Christian spirituality might be too much for some churches.

Miko, I, too, have watched and wondered at the increasing self-balkanization of the more evangelical Christian churches over the years. Just down the road from us, a church ran an alternative little-league softball program for a couple of summers, in competition with the larger softball program. I never could understand the need to that. It didn't last very long. I suspect because it was a solution without a need.

And isn't Christian Scouting a redundancy?

You would think! But Scouting allows for different religious groups. Girl Scouts promotes total tolerance, and I think Boy Scouts has something of a requirement that you have a faith, IIRC, meaning no athiests.

I do think it's a shame that some Christian groups want to wall themselves off from the secular world while also mimicking it. It seems sort of self-defeating, in that Jesus Christ was pretty deeply involved with the world outside his group of followers, and (in my view anyway) really seemed to encourage being part of the larger world so that you could assist others and show, through the way you lived, what your beliefs were. I'm not sure how those missions of Christianity can be achieved in a closed society.

I have gone to yoga at a handful of different places, and the spiritual content really varies. It's kind of a wild card. Some studios/teachers are more into spiritual stuff than others. Some are very much just about fitness and maybe body/mind connection, but some also promote Hindu concepts like chakras and kundalini, and some promote general New Age spirituality like the law of intention/attraction, universal shared consciousness, etc.

Then there's the Brooklyn version: Yo!-ga.

heh, jon.

About the whole Boy Scouts thing... My husband is an Eagle Scout and (this is so silly) the only thing that we had a fight about when I was pregnant was that I said if we had a girl she could do Girl Scouts, but I was forbidding any boy we had to do Boy Scouts. Because of the lesser inclusiveness thing, mainly.

I still feel that way, but man that was a stupid fight.

Plus the girl scouts have the cookies.

This is the thread where I get to say that Stynxno and I might visit the Holy Land Experience while we're in Florida. They have Celebrate Jesus - Karaoke! I'm excited, lol.

Oooh, surreal stuff, TPS. I am jealous.

I visited with a college group back in 2002 or so- we were doing a stage version of "The Screwtape Letters" at FL churches to recruit for the college and somebody donated tickets for all of us. It didn't have all the stuff it has now back then, so I'm excited to visit. I'm sure Stynxno will enjoy all the historical exhibits.

Like the historical lily-white Jesus vid on the website?

Hehehe, yes. I can't tell from the daily calendar (which is in a really confusing format), but I think he's resurrected multiple times a day.

yea.. there are a lot of trappings to it that are religious; for example, as someone who was brought up an Indian Muslim I would never chant 'om'; that's a very explicitly hindu thing for us.. politically hindu, not just spiritually

I'm in agreement with you about the Scouts thing, podey. Even before the inclusiveness issue became well known, I always disliked its militaristic side. My brother was in it as a kid, and we thought he would love it because I loved Girl Scouts. But it was totally different. A lot of shouting, high tolerance for bullying, even some adult-led bullying. Culturally, the two kinds of Scouts couldn't be more different.

TPS, I would definitely visit that place if I were in the neighborhood. Interesting.

Oh you must, TPS!

a.A hilarious comedy that features clever retellings of classic Bible stories such as “Daniel and the Lion’s Den” and “Peter and Rhoda.”

PLEASE tell me that last one stars Valerie Harper.

I encouraged my son to do Boy Scouts but his dad couldn't be bothered, so it didn't pan out. I hate the top level organization's intolerance of diversity. But there's a lot of really great local troops doing good stuff like camping. And if people who are not straight & narrow avoid them, those boys won't get to know how other people believe. Girl Scouts rocked, though.

"Those boys" -- the boys in the troops? At least for my brother's troop, the kids were all in school together anyway and knew each other through that. They never did go camping; I think they went to an aquarium. They sold popcorn and chanted a lot. It didn't last long, so who knows, it might have gotten better. I do admire those boys and families who remain involved in scouting while fighting the legal battles to be included.

I'm sure there are some good troops, but I never encountered one. I have, though, encountered a few really nice, admirable grown men who I later learned had been Eagle Scouts.

But yeah, Girl Scouts did totally rock. I stayed in 'til Seniors, and joined a council troop that did backpacking trips throughout the year culminating in 8-day summer hikes to the White Mountains, Green Mountains, Catskills, and Adirondacks. Those were great experiences.

When I was younger, a close friend said that meditation was satanic. I was all "huh?". But people believe stuff like that. He went on to become a minister...

I was a Boy Scout, up to First Class, and I learned a lot of good things and did a lot of camping, many of the things I learned have been quite useful, first aid, various kinds of readiness, and even though there was a kid in my troop who stabbed a woman to death during a botched robbery in an attempt to secure money for his stepfather's prison drug habit, and about a decade after I left the troop leadership was embroiled in a child sex scandal, I think it was a good thing for me to have done and I learned a lot from it. I don't know anything about Girl Scouts but I'm sure they're superior in every way, that's just how girls are.

The spiritual aspects of yoga keep me out of yoga classes; there's not much room if you don't have a soul. But many of the stretches and breathing exercises incorporate themselves well into an exercise and wellness routine. Mileage on all this stuff varies.

Girl Scouts promotes total tolerance, and I think Boy Scouts has something of a requirement that you have a faith...
Another thing that seems to be different here. There are no 'girl' or 'boy' scouts here - they are just scouts and boys and girls join in together. The whole idea of segregating kids by gender in pretty much any activity doesn't go over well here. While there is a Christian element (standard Scout prayer at parades), it's pretty low-key and there is no 'preachiness' about any of it. My 3 youngest kids have all been scouts (2 still are - 1 boy, 1 girl) and enjoy it immensely - the whole movement here seems to be very inclusive and non-threatening. The leaders of our troop take a very hard line on any form of bullying or anti-social behaviour and have been incredibly supportive of our efforts to thwart my daughter's problems with depression.

They do lots of outdoor activities, plenty of camping and I have no problem at all in recommending it to other parents as a safe environment where kids can learn things they wouldn't otherwise. Personally, I'm really happy with the self-discipline that the movement promotes and they manage to do it in a positive way rather than being in any way threatening or creepy.

I guess I never thought of yoga as a religious activity although, of course, I vaguely knew of its roots. It seems to be considered more or less exclusively a fitness activity these days, as far as I can see.

Huh. So you don't have Girl Guides in australia either, dg?

Yes, we do have Girl Guides and it is restricted to girls only. It's something of an anomaly, though and doesn't seem to be anywhere near as popular as Scouts. For some reason, Scouting has been experiencing something of a revival over the past few years - our troop was facing the possibility of being forced to merge with another due to low (and declining) numbers when my kids first joined, but now has huge waiting lists at all age levels and all groups operate at full capacity. I have been told that this is consistent across the country. My feeling is that parents are seeing the effect of urban environments combined with kids having so many distractions from getting outside and doing things that don't involve pure passive activity and are seeing Scouts as a way of encouraging more active lifestyles. The cynical side of me adds that Scouts is a good way of doing this without the parents having to change their own passive lifestyles and is almost an 'outsourcing' approach to certain aspects of parenting. Either way, the kids benefit, so it's all good.

I was a Girl Guide in Canada and loved it. Some eyerolling at the uniform and rituals, of course, but we put up with all that for the outdoor stuff. By the time we were thirteen, we could go camping in a small group on our own; I had all the first aid and leadership certifications, a friend of mine had all the boating and water safety stuff, so we'd just hop on a Voyageur bus, hike into the campsite, and pitch our tents.

To bring the subject back around, I guess it was at about the same age that I first went to yoga classes. These were held at the Friends' House, by which I mean the local Quaker joint.

When I hear this stuff it just pisses me off. I'm Christian, but this whole parallel wacko universe thing is just... bizarre. Christians who are afraid of other cultures are afraid of their own faith.

Wow, that's amazing that Scouting is combined in Australia. I think that's a great idea. I wonder how long it's been that way? I think the historical roots of Scouting are the same for all of us, Lord Baden-Powell and all that, so it's fascinating to see how different cultures treat the different branches.

From the Scouts Australia site:

Adapting to the general changes in Australian society, Scouting admitted girls and young women to its Venturer Scout and Rover Sections in 1973 and its Cub Scout and Scout Sections in 1988. The Joey Scout Section commenced on 1 July 1990 and is open to boys and girls aged between six and seven-and-a-half years of age.

It's strange that the introduction of allowing females in was staggered in such a way, but better than not doing it at all, I guess.