Scott W. Hodgman

Striving for Authentic Identity: Personal Transformation and Christian Appropriation of Yoga Scott W. Hodgman

Many American Christians who practice Yoga seldom reflect critically on the implications of assimilating this spiritual discipline into their life. Responding to this contemporary phenomenon Striving for Authentic Idnetity considers the situation of Christian American appropriation of Yoga, looking to two texts to do so: Gregory of Nyssa's Life of Moses and Patañjali's Yoga-Sutras. In this theoretical reflection on appropriation of another culture's spirituality, Hodgman draws out parallel emphases on personal transformation and striving in both texts, suggesting a point of reconciliation for Christians who engage Yoga across the cultural and historical divide. He accomplishes this comparative textual study with a methodological self-consciousness and a concern for historical context that skillfully illuminates these texts and situates them within a broader comparative study of religions. This book is addressed to religious practitioners of Yoga, to scholars of Patañjali and Gregory of Nyssa, as well as scholars of the comparative study of religion. Given the scope of this study, anyone interested in the Yoga-Christian praxis dialogue should be familiar with this study.