Tai chi: occult, dangerous and not for Christians - we answer our critics

by Pat Franklin

Is tai chi evil, demonic rubbish as we say – or can Christians practice it or even teach it? A tai chi teacher, who says he is a born-again believer, claims we are wrong. We print his e-mail  below, but would first say this: You say there is no mention of tai chi in the Bible, as if that means God has approved it!   He does NOT approve it!  It is based on a pagan belief that ‘chi’ is a universal force.  This is not true.  There is no ‘chi’, but the real force that holds the universe together is the will of the Lord Jesus Christ, who made everything and holds all things together (Colossians 1:17). So right there at the very foundation of tai chi, you have a lie. 

 Here is the email, unedited: ‘Hello Free Press, 

‘I'm a Born Again Christian with a personal relationship with The Lord and find your comments regarding Tai Chi untrue.  Tai Chi is not the work of Satan but an internal martial art that promotes health and reduces stress.  I am both a Christian and a Tai Chi instructor and believe it’s my calling to help others through Tai Chi as it helped me improve my health and heal my bad back.  As part of my calling I teach a regular Tai Chi class at my church to help older members improve their balance and reduce the chance of falling, a major health problem for older adults.

‘Based on my study of the Bible I see no reference to Tai Chi mentioned on any page, in any section.  Could your prescriptive regarding Tai Chi be an opinion based on your own personal belief and not the word of God?  I wonder.  To believe Tai Chi is from Satan you may as well believe that dancing is from Satan as well.’

This was the second critical e-mail we received on the subject of tai chi.  Our views answering the first critical email are on this link:

http://www.thefreepressonline.co.uk/news/5/2119.htm   

Our original article, to which both e-mailers were objecting, can be found at:

http://www.thefreepressonline.co.uk/news/5/2089.htm

So, dear e-mailer, our answers are in those two articles.  There is also a good answer on the site www.gotquestions.org/Tai-Chi-Christian.html

Since tai chi claims that ‘chi’ is the supreme force in the universe, at the very foundation of tai chi, you have a lie, as Colossians 1 shows.  Why go any further?  Why travel on that deceptive road?  Why defend it?  Jesus told us plainly:  there is a narrow way that leads to life and a broad way that leads to destruction.  God did not have to name every single way station on that broad way, so we have no specific mention in the Bible of yoga, tai chi, reiki, or many other dangerous practices.

As D.L. Moody once said: “The best way to show that a stick is crooked is not to argue about it or to spend time denouncing it, but to lay a straight stick alongside it.”  The Bible is our straight stick.  Every other way is crooked, including tai chi.  There are a billion ways a stick could be crooked, but only one way to be straight.

I’ve only met one person who claimed to be a Christian, and yet was in a tai chi class.  I tried to warn her about it, but got nowhere.  She was a very energetic, seemingly healthy person, and she was actively trying to recruit others to join the class.  A short time after I got to know her, she suddenly died.  No doubt she knows better now.

The slow motion exercises of tai chi supposedly open pathways for the 'chi' energy to flow.  This should set alarm bells ringing if you are a Christian!  Why would you want to control some supernatural power and make it flow through your own body?   This is absolutely not of God!  If you do open a spiritual pathway, something might just come in! 

Our latest e-mailer calls tai chi 'internal martial arts'.  The very phrase gives the game away!  Who wants martial arts inside them? 

Actually I think tai chi IS in the Bible, under the general heading of witchcraft - attempting to manipulate by a supernatural power.  

I am grieving for all the people who are lured into these ‘exercise classes’.   The churches are at fault for keeping people in such a state of biblical ignorance that they cannot even discern why the classes are bad, and spiritually dangerous.

Please!  If any pastor reads this, please!  Teach your people to shun the occult, to run from it as from a bear, or better yet, to confront it and try to save people out of it!  Satan comes as an angel of light, but his purpose is to steal, to kill, and to destroy as many souls as he can lure to hell. 

We talk about all this in our book ‘Cults and Isms: True or False?’ (available from our web shop)  and we relate how a medium once greeted us with the words: ‘Oh, Pat and Alan, you are going to expose us one day.’  We weren’t even Christians then; we were going to her home for a psychic evening!  We both knew even then that it was not  her speaking, but beings that were inside of her.  She seemed not even to have heard what she said!

The Lord saved us, got us out of that dark realm, and put us on His wonderful narrow way.  Never will I be able to thank Him enough for His incredible mercy on me.  That is why we started this website, to persuade others of the truth of the Bible, and to try to inform people about the many things we have learned, including warning of the terrible dangers in things that look harmless.  We try to publish the truth which the Lord has shown us, to ‘contend earnestly for the truth’ as we are commanded to do in the letter of Jude. 

As for our most recent e-mailer - if you really belong to Jesus, He is the Good Shepherd, He knows His sheep and His sheep hear His voice.  If you are one of His sheep, He will show you the truth of all this.  He will lead you out of tai chi.  If He wants you to lead an exercise class, He will show you how to organize a godly one, one not based on pagan philosophy.  Please don’t close your ears!  Be one of those ‘with ears to hear’.  Be willing to consider, to examine your beliefs about tai chi, to analyze, to think, to search out the truth.

My prayer: O dear Father, so many people in bondage to these pagan practices!  And some even name the name of Your beloved Son!  Dear Father, please open their eyes!  Please help them to come out of these dark things.  Please deliver them from evil!  In Jesus’ holy name!  Amen!

 

 

 

  

 

 

 


10/05/2013

 
 
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'Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.'
1 Corinthians 15:58

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