Demonic Dojo

Some folks see karate as a way to evangelize for Jesus.  On the other hand, there appear to be plenty of folks who think all this Martial Arts stuff is (gasp) demonic, anti-Christian, and  an abonimation.

The violence associated with karate smacks of anything but “Christian.” Legendary karate “masters” were reputed to have superhuman powers, including the ability to kill small birds with a yell (“the shout of doom”), a secret knowledge of how to touch lightly at a spot on the body to cause death (“the touch of death”), and the ability to penetrate an adversary’s body with a bare hand to withdraw his still-beating heart. The very nature of these violent forms of expression runs counter to God’s Word.

How then can any Christian justify his involvement in karate or any of the other martial arts? He can’t. Not even by claiming that such involvement is for self-defense, exercise, to learn discipline, etc. (let alone justifying it for evangelism purposes!). There are other methods by which these results may be obtained-methods not associated with harmful violence and false doctrine.

Nearly all Martial Arts instructors assume occult practice as an integral part of their discipline. Therefore, they would see no need to attempt any clear seperation of these elements from possible non-occult aspects. Even Bruce Tegner, whom Martial Artists tend to despise for his eclectic and highly westernized approach, recommends Yoga-breathing in his book on karate [28].

Secondly, any individual attending Martial Arts classes, even if able to discern clearly which activities or techniques were occult and which were not, would not be permitted to continue with the class if he kept refusing to do certain things. The best instructors are tough disciplinarians. Woe betide anyone who tried to resist their leadership in the class-situation! Additionally, the psychological pressure of the body of students is very strong and not to be underestimated.

Therefore I would never recommend the practice of attending Martial Arts classes with the object of extracting useful self-defence techniques.

Satan is the destroyer. Karate, judo and other fighting arts are still taught and practiced as religion in their own countries. Many Christians try to exclude meditation when they practice. But that’s like breaking off one thorn from the whole bush and leaving the rest. It would be well to note that the meditation part in my 11-year karate history was less than 1/8 of 1 percent. So you can see it has a very small part in most American taught karate schools. It is the constant repetition of breaking, kicking, tearing, striking, punching and crippling techniques that develop the skill to maim or kill someone. The symbolic rituals, the passed down defensive moves, the uniform, the terminology, the kata forms (pre-arranged series of punches or kicks in a connected pattern), are all part of a system of religion on earth that pre-dates our Lord Jesus by about 3000 years.

[…] Christian karate makes about as much sense as Christian pornography, or Christian prostitution, or Christian drug abuse. The Word of God instructs us not to bring the unclean thing into our “home.” It is an abomination. We can change a few words in describing karate, tone it down to make it desirable and acceptable in the public eye; but it still doesn’t change the fact that it is a centuries old form of Eastern religion. Many of the hand and body movements are strikingly similar and often identical to the movements of pagan rituals and dances performed in Asian, Oriental, African and Polynesian temple worship today. Satan is so cunning and deceiving. He slips in under our ignorant noses and roots himself deeply in our culture and even in our churches; and after he has operated for so long a time, we accept his ways as God’s ways.

It doesn’t take much insight to see that when the karate craze (Mid-to-early 60’s through 70’s) swept our country it was coupled with other satanic assaults. There was a direct attack on the minds of the young people of America. Martial arts came with the rock and roll explosion, the drug revolution, the sexual freedom of choice movement and the rekindled interest in occult phenomena. While you were fighting sex, drugs, acid rock and roll and the occults from your pulpits; karate wedged its way into our society-unseen and unknown by all of the highly trained theological eyes.

Silly me — I just sort of thought of karate as, y’know, good exercise and, secondarily, a way to defend myself.  I had no idea I could use it to evangelize — or, if I was in a bad mood, to get all demonically destructive.  The association with sex, drugs, and rock & roll sounds like a lot of fun, though — I’ll have to ask sensei when the party starts …