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TruthBook Religious News Blog



Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Meditation goes mainstream

Bonna Johnson
October 10, 2008

A report released this year showed an astonishingly high number of Protestants - nearly half - say they meditate at least once a week. Among the public, 39 percent meditate at least weekly, according to a report by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

It's no surprise that people are seeking paths to peace and serenity in our high-octane, 24-hour world.

"We're a mentally focused, hard-core, achievement-oriented society," says Dr. J. David Forbes, a medical doctor and meditation teacher in Nashville, Tenn. "People are finding it hard to quiet the brain down."

Once they do, he says, meditation may lead not only to new insights but also to a healthier, happier life, he says. Studies show daily practice can reduce stress and anxiety, lower blood pressure and even increase life expectancy in the elderly, he says.

Meditation has been, at times, eyed with suspicion. The Vatican in 1989 went so far as to say that methods such as Zen, yoga and transcendental meditation, can "degenerate into a cult of the body" and be dangerous.

And the notion that meditation is too way out there for Christians, if not rooted in the Bible, still exists today.

"The idea of emptying the mind is not biblically based," says Don Whitney, associate professor of biblical spirituality at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. "There can be a danger."

Referring to meditation's long association with Hinduism, Buddhism and other Eastern religions, Whitney says, "Some of the yoga stuff, where you're given a mantra, that is rooted in false religions." He sees no problem with stretching, but once you start chanting, you're treading on treacherous ground, he says.

But for many Christians, meditation fits quite nicely into their religious life. They're drawn to biblical Scriptures, such as in the Psalms, which says, "Be still, and know that I am God."

For them, meditation has brought deeper meaning to their lives.

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