GOP Candidate: Yoga Opens You to Satanic Possession

Guess that explains the hot yoga craze! It's preparation for eternity in hell!

Virginia lieutenant gubernatorial contender E.W. Jackson in 2008 took a stance that's apparently common among Christian conservatives.

Maybe it's the crow poses.

National Review's Betsy Woodruff looked into controversial Virginia lieutenant gubernatorial candidate and pastor E.W. Jackson's 2008 book Ten Commandments To An Extraordinary Life for a deeper understanding of his views on the human spirit, society, and, uh, yoga. Yes, yoga.According to Jackson:

John Chapman, 1809. Collection of the New York Public Library.

When one hears the word meditation, it conjures an image of Maharishi Yoga talking about finding a mantra and striving for nirvana. . . . The purpose of such meditation is to empty oneself. . . . [Satan] is happy to invade the empty vacuum of your soul and possess it. That is why people serve Satan without ever knowing it or deciding to, but no one can be a child of God without making a decision to surrender to him. Beware of systems of spirituality which tell you to empty yourself. You will end up filled with something you probably do not want.

Yoga has become so normalized in American life that this seems an extreme position (no pun intended). And yet Jackson's warning about on the spiritual dangers of yoga are not uncommon among Christian conservatives representing a variety of denominations.
R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, sparked a passionate discussion on the topic of Christians and yoga in 2010, when he wrote in a book review: