ChurchWatch: Chuches Ban Child Yoga

[major_clanger]

[My new byline for posts highlighting particularly hypocritical, antisocial or just plain daft behaviour emerging from the Church.]

A yoga group for toddlers has been banned from two church halls by ministers who branded it a "sham" and "un-Christian"

Rev Tim Jones, the vicar of St James's, said: "Any alternative philosophies or beliefs are offering a sham - and at St James's church we want people to have the real thing.

"Yoga has its roots in Hinduism, and attempts to use exercises and relaxation techniques to put a person into a calm frame of mind - in touch with some kind of impersonal spiritual reality.

"The philosophy of yoga cannot be separated from the practice of it, and any teacher of yoga (even to toddlers) must subscribe to the philosophy.

"As Christians we believe that this philosophy is false and not something we wish to encourage. Yoga is encouraging people to think that there is a way to wholeness of body and mind through human techniques - whereas the only true way to wholeness is by faith in God through Jesus Christ."

Comments

[aardvark179.livejournal.com]

The Church of England is going through a bit of an interesting time at the moment, one half is very much on the liberal end of things, and the other seems to be busily trying to push the boundaries of crazy. There's a push to get all the churches in the Anglican congress to sign up to a covenant that they won't appoint gay bishops and various other things which is likely to cause the very split its proponents say want they stop happening, and any liberals who become bishops moderate their position to avoid winding up the crazies, while the crazies who become bishops announce that the recent floods are divine judgement on homosexuals.

It's all very worrying to watch coming from an extremely liberal high-church background.