Student Paper Criticized for Op-Ed Attacking Yoga, Hinduism

The student newspaper at John Brown University is being criticized by Hindu groups for publishing a column that attacked yoga because of its links to Hinduism. The op-ed in Threefold Online noted with concern the increasing popularity of yoga in the United States.

"As I have been thinking of all the arguments and reasons why yoga is not as beneficial as we’ve been led to believe, it all keeps coming back to the fact that yoga has its roots in the worship of demonic Hindu gods," the column said. "I believe that while yoga may offer some benefits, those benefits have hidden, demonic strings attached. I spoke to one of our chapel speakers years ago about this. He was a Dalit 'untouchable' from India who had become a Christian. His view is that yoga is the beautiful face that the very ugly religion of Hinduism uses to sell itself to Americans."

Rajan Zed, president of Universal Society of Hinduism, has called for the paper and the university to apologize.

The editor-in-chief of the paper has published a piece saying that the column does not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper or the university.