“My family honors Jesus as a holy man, but I don’t want to know him more than that, unless I can keep my pantheon of other gods,” my neighbor gestured with her hands as if welcoming a table of friendly guests.

‘My pantheon’ . . . what an interesting choice of words.

Seems like vocabulary for sightseeing in Italy, not your typical driveway chat. Derived from the Greek words of ‘pan’ (all) and ‘theos’ (god), it means ‘of all gods’.

That afternoon, conversation turned to spiritual matters (as it often does here in Los Angeles). Our neighbors from the street over, they’d stopped to ask when our lemonade stand would be up and running again. After their questions were answered, I asked how they met. A lovely couple and second marriage for both (she a yoga instructor, he a yoga musician), they were introduced while performing on world-tour for a yoga festival.

Before long, her story was spilling out and had me enthralled. Just weeks before our conversation, she’d had a health crisis and feared for her life. One night of unbearable pain, Jesus appeared to her in a dream, assured healing, and promised to see her through it.

Since Jesus had obviously made first contact by healing her body, I followed up to ask if they’d interacted since then and if she had any interest in knowing Him more personally—to which she gave her profound answer, “[no] unless I can keep my pantheon of other gods.”

What struck me was the clarity of her response. She knew a truth many within the Body of Christ still fumble over (myself included):

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I am aware of the ongoing conversation in the church about yoga.

The level of debate ranges from opposing opinions shared between friends at Starbucks, all the way to back-stabbing social media rants meant to obliterate the opposing idiot—I know there are a lot of strong views. I don’t think people are idiots, sometimes we just need some persuasion. This is my viewpoint (along with the rest of Clean House) so, as always, take it or leave it.

Yoga means union (or to yoke) in Sanskrit—a classical Indian language—it’s a practice and philosophy signifying the union of the mind, body, and spirit.

Christ’s Body in the West

In the West, we have a natural worldview vs. supernatural. We love the body and the mind, but the spirit is a little too mysterious. We dislike things we can’t explain and have a hard time believing spiritual beings exist and influence our lives and world affairs. We talk about spirit in terms like “the universe” and “the divine conscience”, or if we’re Christian we may think of “God” way up in heaven floating around somewhere, or the “Holy Spirit”.

We enjoy containers and like to compartmentalize things to study, compare, and make sense of them. As Christians living within this Western worldview, this tends to be how we approach yoga; the main question being:

Is yoga compatible with Christianity?

Since we like the breathing, stretching and spirituality, but Hinduism doesn’t fit our fancy, we switch it out for the Holy Spirit and call it ‘good’.

After speaking to my neighbor, it had me curious how (depending on who you ask) practicing yoga can represent connection to a pantheon of gods or one singular God. Is the conflicting belief settled as simply as holidays where Christians celebrate Jesus while others celebrate someone or something else?

How do our brothers and sisters in Christ from Eastern countries, like India, reconcile this?

Christ’s Body in the East

Where the Western worldview is material or natural, the East has maintained a spiritual or supernatural worldview for millennia—they believe in an unseen spiritual realm that affects daily life. Since this is the country of origin for yoga, I wondered what questions they have about it?

During a recent conversation with a close friend from India, he said there is no questions over compatibility; Indian Christians reject all practice of yoga because the physical and spiritual aspects of yoga are inseparable.

In India, it’s customary for everyone (including Christians) to practice breathing and stretching exercises to start the day (similar to Westerners visiting the health-club), but they don’t call it yoga. When you involve meditation, emptying the mind and posing in asanas (yoga specific postures), this is yoga.

From their point of view, the definition of yoga is union (or yoking) with its god of origin, Lord Shiva, and isn’t mistaken for exercise. (I find it interesting how the East has a more specific and spiritual definition than the West.)

Eastern Christians don’t ponder, “Is yoga compatible with Christianity?” to them, it’s idolatry.

Out of the countless gods revered in Hinduism, interestingly, my friend called Lord Shiva “the confused god” because he’s a gender-fluid deity, changing sex from male to female. Do we still think the culture’s current confusion is humanly initiated? We begin to resemble what we worship.

Have we naively welcomed this god into our nations, churches and homes by worshipping it openly with our bodies?

To many in the West, a spiritual worldview sounds too simple-minded or superstitious. We may believe the gods of Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome were mythological, but these ancient deities were backed by the chief god of this world, Satan, and these demons still influence our lives today. It’s the same pantheon at work: demons of sexual perversion and immorality, wealth, war, power, intelligence, security, comfort, human sacrifice. . . can we recognize the modern-day versions?

A Spiritual Awakening

No matter what part of the world we come from, humans are drawn to our God-origin by design, and made to live in awe and worship. Thor, Wonder Woman, Super Man, Skywalker, Frodo, many of our favorite stories and characters are, “I am someone special, but didn’t realize it,” stories.

However, coming from God and being formed in His image doesn’t mean we’ll behold or worship Him. We know there’s more to ourselves and the universe (both good and evil) than what we see and experience; for some, yoga offers a connection point to that universe. Like our own origin story in the Garden of Eden, alongside an intimate relationship with Truth, there’s always a tempting counterfeit. When we claim closeness with Jesus is the one and only connection to the Father (the creator of the universe) yet practice yoga, are we offering truth or counterfeit?

If every magazine rack, all of pop-culture and most celebrities pitch yoga for mind-body-spirit connection, why is the church serving-up the same dish just a different flavor?

I was so encouraged to hear Jesus revealed Himself to my neighbor, and if she were to become His disciple (based on our conversation), she seems to already know He’d require the pantheon to be left behind.

She has God’s attention so she has mine, too. It appears she is counting the cost but doesn’t see Jesus as the prize yet. Her interest is growing and her questions are welcomed; they know our home is always open for food and Jesus conversations.

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My neighbor’s spirituality is more than theoretical. She’s devoted to her pantheon and welcomes and promotes it through yoga practice. Can we roll-out our yoga mat next to hers, block out the idolatry with Christian meditations, assume the same contorted positions, and still believe we’ll welcome a singular spirit because we house Jesus in our heart or have oneness with Christ?

We are getting more than we bargained for and more than we called upon.

We welcome a pantheon with our body. It’s time for Christ’s Body (that’s us) to wake up and see the reality of what we are dealing with, how we can be ready for what’s coming, and why Jesus Christ makes all the difference.

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