The Last Word
The War On Krishna: Religious-right activists, fresh from the front lines of the War on Christmas, take on a new and dangerous pagan threat
Creeping Shariah. The homosexual agenda. Secular humanism, socialism, and the perennial, odious War on Christmas. The thousand years of darkness said to have begun when Barack Obama was re-elected in November.
Yes, Christian nationalists 鈥� those self-appointed stewards of America鈥檚 鈥淛udeo-Christian heritage鈥� 鈥� have a lot on their plates. But that doesn鈥檛 mean they鈥檝e let their guard down.
The name of that threat?
Yoga. And it鈥檚 everywhere.
Since October, a group of parents in Encinitas, Calif., have been working with the Encinitas-based National Center for Law and Policy (NCLP) to stop one of the town鈥檚 public elementary schools from teaching yoga to its students and thus indoctrinating them in the Hindu faith.
The NCLP is helmed by Dean Broyles, a lawyer who says he was 鈥渃alled to law school specifically to be trained to fight for religious liberties.鈥� He apprenticed under Jay Sekulow, head of the Christian-right American Center for Law and Justice, and 鈥渞eceived extensive training in pro-family, pro-life and pro-religious liberty matters鈥� from the National Litigation Academies run by the virulently anti-gay Alliance Defending Freedom (formerly Alliance Defense Fund).
A minor celebrity within Christian-right circles, Broyles is a vigorous opponent of gay marriage who lectures on 鈥淗ow the Radical Homosexual Agenda is Destroying America鈥� and promotes nullification, a fringe legal theory which claims that states have the right to ignore federal laws they consider unconstitutional.
Now, he has a new bone to pick 鈥� with yoga. Though the Encinitas program, like many American adaptations of yoga, has been stripped utterly of any references to prayer and reduced to a strictly physical regimen, that鈥檚 not enough for Broyles. 鈥淸W]ho decides when enough religion has been stripped out of the program to make it legal?鈥� he asks. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 the problem when you introduce religion into the curriculum and actually immerse and marinate children in the program.鈥�
Broyles is not the only far-right Christian hardliner to brood over the potential impact of yoga on vulnerable young minds. Tony Perkins, president of the anti-gay Family Research Council, in January lit into the U.S. military for promoting the pagan art among its members.
Discussing on his radio show a weekly yoga class offered to U.S. Marines as a means of dealing with stress, Perkins lamented that 鈥渢he military seems intent on driving religion out and replacing it with wacky substitutes. They鈥檝e added atheist chaplains, Wiccan worship centers, and now, meditation classes. But none of them are as effective or as constructive as a personal relationship with God.鈥�
Yoga is not a new concern. In 2011, Marsha West of the anti-gay American Family Association wrote: 鈥淵oga is not 鈥榡ust exercising.鈥� Participants are being swept into a counterfeit religion. According to God鈥檚 Word, pagan religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, are evil.鈥�
鈥淚mplementing Hindu based spiritual practices is an affront to a holy God,鈥� Mark Webster of the online Christian Apologetics Ministry wrote in a 2010 article titled, 鈥淵oga/Contemplative Prayer: The Snake Is In The House.鈥� He continued, 鈥淭he Lord Jesus Christ is the snake killer par excellence.鈥�
Nor is yoga the only athletic endeavor to which Christian-right hardliners have taken umbrage. The Olympics was established by the ancient Greeks to honor Zeus, king of the gods. Even today, the winners of this heathen festival are rewarded with precious metals and parades; the losers return home in shame.
Early Christian world leaders strove to outlaw this display of blasphemy 鈥� yet today, many tolerate and even applaud it.
But not all. 鈥淭here is an irreconcilable conflict between Greek Athleticism and the Christian Biblical Worldview. The invocation of anything based upon the acceptance of ancient Greek philosophy has consistently been the foundation for opposition to Christianity,鈥� declares the website of CreationWorldview. 鈥淲hat is wrong with the Olympics? It is an alternative religion which embraces a spirit of supremacy, a win-at-all-costs attitude, that is completely at odds with the values of Christianity!鈥�
Even football, that most red-blooded of American sports, can be an affront to the truly pious. 鈥淲e must look at the state of our hearts,鈥� admonished the pastor of Moreland, Georgia鈥檚 First Baptist Church in a late-September column. 鈥淥n Saturdays does 鈥� football completely dominate and take-over [sic] our thinking? If you have a desire or joy for something more than God, you鈥檙e an idolater.鈥�
