WWJD? Well, Not Yoga!

     Several years ago millions of Americans began to wear rubber bands around their wrists.  The bands came in a wide variety of color, but they were all emblazoned with the initials “WWJD.”  When I first saw them I thought it was some marketing campaign for an AM radio station.  But as we all now know, these wristbands posed an intriguing theological question: What Would Jesus Do?  

     Well, I’m no Billy Graham, but when I first saw the wrist-band question, I knew immediately where to find the answer.  As they say, when all else fails, read the instructions, or in this case the Bible.  My King James version is very user-friendly, and if the King James version was good enough for Paul and Silas, it’s good enough for me.  Jesus’ words are all printed in red, so it’s not hard to find out exactly what he would do.  At first glance, it’s pretty simple.  He told us what he would do and what we should do.  First, love the Lord your God with all your heart.  Second, love your neighbor as yourself. 

     Sounds pretty simple.  But the devil is in the details…Well, let me rephrase that.  In this case, the Lord is in the details.  Take that loving your neighbor stuff.  That’s easy when your neighbor is a real nice guy who keeps his hedges trimmed, grass cut low, and the neighborhood property values high.  But what if he’s a jerk who has his broken down car up on blocks in the front yard? 

     And it gets worse.  Jesus defines “neighbor” not just as the nice couple next door, but also your enemies.  He told us we should love our enemies and forgive them.  If they mistreat you, turn the other cheek.  Don’t get revenge.  Walk the extra mile. 

     And then, most annoying of all, he told the rich man give away all his money.  Not to tithe or be generous.  Give it all away.  At that point, of course, Jesus had stopped preaching and gone to meddling.   

     So What Would Jesus Do?  He would love his enemies, forgive folks when he was mistreated, share everything, and give away all his money. 

    Let’s face it, brothers and sisters.  It’s a totally impractical way to live.  If you turn the other cheek, you’re gonna end up with two slapped cheeks.  And if you give away all of your money, you’ll need not only the Lord but a really good bankruptcy attorney. 

     In the face of these unsatisfactory answers, we people of faith did what we always do when we get in uncomfortable situations.  We changed the subject, or in this case the question.  WWJD? became WWJND? What Would Jesus Not Do.  It’s much easier to have a negative-based faith rather than a positive one.  After all, most of the Ten Commandments began with the words “Thou Shalt Not.”  

     It’s the theology of the Church Lady.  Don’t do this, don’t do that, and for God’s sake (pun intended) do not have a good time.

      Well, the latest answer to WWJND? came to us last week from a very high source. 

     No, not the Pope or Billy Graham, or even Franklin Graham.  It came from Dr. Albert Mohler, the President of the Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.  He warned his fellow Christians that it was “not spiritually safe” to do yoga.  He said that Christians who practice yoga were “embracing, or at a minimum flirting with a form of spirituality that could send them spiraling into a dangerous, unbiblical gray zone well outside Christianity.” 

     In short, he said in so many words, “Jesus would not do yoga.”

     Suffice to say, this Baptist seminarian took a very inflexible position about yoga.   

     This pronouncement by one of the world’s foremost Baptist scholars came as quite a surprise to my wife.  She goes to church every Sunday, prays each day, attends a Bible study class, and occasionally she does yoga.  She had no idea that when she is stretching and meditating in yoga class, she was engaging in sinful conduct threatening her eternal destination.   

     But the “Thou Shall Not do Yoga” pronouncement did not come as a surprise at all to me.  I was raised a Southern Baptist, and I have long been aware of the position that any physical activity other than football, basketball, baseball or golf is probably a sin.  The safest thing to do is stay seated in the Fellowship Hall and eat fried chicken. 

     For example, I was taught at an early age that one of the worst sins is dancing.  I accepted this tenet of my faith until I became a teenager and first began to lust in my heart for girls in my high school.  I wanted to dance with them.  I wanted to dance real close to them, even if it put my soul in jeopardy.   

     This led to my first theological debate.  I argued with my preacher (who just happened to be my father), my Sunday school teacher (who just happened to be my mother) and some of the sweet Christian girls in my Sunday school class who thought dancing was a sin, especially dancing with me.   

     In my theological debates, I pointed out to my father, my mother, and the girls who did not want to dance with me that there was absolutely nothing in the Bible to support the “Thou Shalt Not Dance” admonition.  It wasn’t prohibited by the Ten Commandments, and Jesus never said a word about it.   

     But from my parent’s perspective, there was nothing really to debate.  In our family, we were like Calvin Coolidge’s preacher.  We felt that sin was sin, and were agin it.  So I grew up being taught that Jesus would never do the Twist, the Watusi, or even the Fox Trot. 

     But I was a sinner, and so I backslid my way right onto the dance floor.  The devil made me do it.  I asked the Lord to forgive me, but only after doing an Al Gore-like Twist at my high school prom. 

     And so now I have been told that if I go to yoga class with my wife, I might as well dance with her.  Sin is sin, and I better not backslide either on the dance floor or in yoga class.  But at my age, I do need to stretch from time to time.  Accordingly, I do have a question for the President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary: WJGTAC? Would Jesus go to a chiropractor?