NEW YORK — Students attending a Christian yoga class at a church in Manhattan won’t hear the instructor asking them to meditate while making poses. Instead, they encouraged to focus on God while reciting the Lord’s Prayer during their session.
Rev. Thomas Ryan, who leads two-hour weekly yoga classes at his church, St. Paul the Apostle, on the West Side near Columbus Circle, believes the Hindu-derived expression can be adapted to benefit Christians.
“The science of yoga is like a software that you plug into the hardware of your beliefs,” explained the Christian yoga instructor in a NY Daily News report. “It can be adapted as people need it to be.”
The practice of Christian yoga is fueled by faith in Jesus Christ, and allows that faith to penetrate the body, mind and spirit, he added.
Ryan has been in the forefront of taking what Hindus believes help practitioners finds the god in oneself and transforming it into an exercise that can be enrich Christians physically as well as spiritually.
In addition to leading yoga sessions, Ryan has authored how-to books on yoga, including “Prayer of Heart and Body: Meditation and Yoga as a Christian Spiritual Practice,” and been featured in DVD Yoga Prayer.
His works are aimed at helping his audience build an appreciation for the role of the body in prayer.
However, conservative Christian leaders have criticized the practice.
Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, said in a 1989 letter that practices like yoga and meditation could "degenerate into a cult of the body."
But reservations against has not stopped Christian yoga lovers like Susan Bordenkircher, author of Yoga for Christians.
“The Christ-centered [yoga] format is an effective way for Christians to enjoy the practice, and the many benefits of yoga without the concern that it is in any way contrary to their spiritual beliefs,” she said.
