Why Christian Karate?

Gichin Funakoshi is considered by many to be the father of what we know as karate today. From reading his book Karate-Do Kyohan, it is clear to me that the focus of the martial arts has historically been on the spiritual aspects of the martial artists. The founders of karate were monks and the training was done in their temples. Mr. Funakoshi was instrumental in spreading the knowledge of karate through demonstrations. When seen through demonstrations, karate appears to be primarily a physical skill. Many who saw the skill wanted to learn karate and this lead to a major shift in karate instruction. Karate became a business. This concerned Mr. Funakoshi greatly and he expressed this concern when he said “I came to be painfully aware of the almost unrecognizable spiritual state to which the karate world had come”.

As a business, many have adapted the study of karate to a successful business model. We live in a world of instant gratification. I have heard of dojos that promote students all the way to black belt in two years because that is what the market demands. The emphasis is on contracts and marketing of martial arts products to the students. Mr. Funakoshi’s concerns were well founded.

The problem is that you cannot develop a complete martial artist without developing him/her spiritually. The most obvious reason for this is that you cannot responsibly equip a person with dangerous weapons without equipping him with the knowledge of when the usage of these weapons is appropriate and the restraint to not use these weapons when they are inappropriate. You might be able to do this otherwise, but the best way is to address the spiritual aspect of the martial artist.

However, this was not the primary reason for addressing spiritual matters in the martial artist. The primary reason is that you cannot maximize the physical without addressing the spiritual. You see this throughout many martial arts texts. Mr. Funakoshi was particularly concerned about instructors who “thoughtlessly place the emphasis of training on the techniques rather than on the spiritual aspects”. The complete martial artist must be developed physically, mentally and spiritually. In Jan Wellendorf’s book Ki, Kata and Combat, he tells us: “The three elements of perfection are inseparable and indivisible. One cannot exist without the others. The student must not try to increase one without increasing the others as well. The effort can only end in frustration”.

There are basically three different scenarios with martial arts instruction today. One scenario is martial arts instruction that completely ignores the spiritual. As I have shown, this is incomplete and yields an incomplete and potentially dangerous martial artist. Another scenario is martial arts instruction that addresses the spiritual, but does so with influences primarily from Eastern religion and philosophy. This is also flawed because it does not acknowledge the one true God. It is, at the very least, dabbling in the occult. The third scenario is the one we are trying to promote at our Christian Karate Academy and I believe this is the only one of the three scenarios that Christians should consider acceptable. We are involved in the study of Christian Tang Soo Do. This is traditional Tang Soo Do, but the Eastern philosophy has been replaced with Biblical principles. We want to continuously expand our learning, but we are always weighing martial arts principles against Biblical truth.

Beyond the things that we are teaching, we also expect you to do Bible study on your own time. That is why you are required to memorize Bible verses and recite them during testing. That is also why we have a space on our practice reports for weekly Bible study and lessons. Bible study leads to spiritual development and you cannot be a complete martial artist without it.

Donnie Chaffin,
4th Dan