In an update to the story I wrote at the beginning of last month about Christian parents in California opposed to yoga in schools, a new development has surfaced. When we last left them, fundamentalist Christian parents in an Encinitas, CA school district had their panties in a wad over yoga being used in physical education classes. The stripped-down version of the ancient physical exercise being used at the school district is an optional program, and specifically uses only physical stretching (ensuring the absence of any cultural or spiritual language).
According to NBC Sourthern California, “School district Superintendent Timothy Baird said he’s shocked a lawsuit was filed against the district. “We have not stripped religion out of it. We never put religion in it,” Baird said. “What we took out were cultural connections, so we don’t use Sanskrit words. But basically what you have kids doing is stretching, moving, breathing. That’s not religious.”
Not satisfied with that explanation, fundamentalist Christian parents in the school district filed suit despite the district’s assurances (and the parents’ ability to remove their children). The civil rights lawsuit seeks to halt the yoga program indefinitely and “restore traditional physical education to the district.” (Notice the use of the conservative buzzword “traditional” in their lawsuit? That’s not an accident.)
In order to succeed, the lawsuit will be required to prove that practicing yoga is inherently religious (therefore making the school’s adaption of the exercise inherently unconstitutional based on the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause).
The hurdle they face is this: yoga isn’t a religious activity. While religions do incorporate yoga into their religious practices, practicing yoga isn’t inherently religious in and of itself. Equating a physical exercise some religions incorporate into their religious practice as a religious belief itself is fallacious. It would be like calling a potluck Christian because many churches host potlucks. While churches do indeed frequently use potlucks to enhance their religious experience through a shared meal, potlucks in and of themselves do not constitute a religious belief or activity – nor does yoga.
For virtually his entire life, Tim has been writing. Over the years he has dabbled in mainstream fiction, science fiction, dystopian fiction, and personal essays. The one consistent thread through his entire writing career has been blogging – he’s been doing it since 1997 in one form or another. When not working on his professional blog (Peacock Panache), Tim toils away at editing & rewriting the novels he’s completed over the years. You an read samples of his other work here.
You can find Tim online at Peacock Panache as well as his personal website. You can also find him on LinkedIn and on Twitter as @timsimms.
Thanks for this interesting blog. I have shared this with my sister. She and her husband come to yoga with me and they have been getting a hard time from their church about it. She will appreciate the read.
Great Read thank you. I am the Sister mentioned in the above comment. My husband and i have been attending Yoga for a few months now. Yes i have a relationship with God and have been taught from my family and some churches that anything new age is not right. I am a leader in my church and really have been trying to push that Yoga is a great way to learn breathing and that we should stop in our lives more and rest our minds. I feel as a society we are too caught up in this busy world and i have been currently teaching Christian meditation which is focusing on breathing and using music and scripture through it and actually stopping and allowing God to speak to us. The reaction from this has been amazing. I would love to get more Christians into Yoga and teach them that stretching is just so freeing and our bodies need it. I do believe there are some practices out there which are not right for me and this is what could have churches against it. I am currently researching into this but so far the two Yoga places i have attended in Christchurch are seeming to be fine. As Christians we are spiritual people and i feel this is not known well in New Zealand and the World. I still pray before i attend every session and am still very discerning in my faith.
Sarah, thank you for your comment. It’s not often I get comments from believers, so I do enjoy it when I do (and they’re not just condemning me to a hell I don’t believe in). I’ve found that the Christian method of overreacting to change with doom and gloom threats and hate speech is beginning to turn off the more liberal or open-minded members of their churches. For whatever reason, the religious are always the last to grow and evolve with the rest of human society. Give it time, and the reluctant majority will dwindle in numbers.
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