Syncretism (Mark #12)

We must become all things to all men!

This worthy goal, reflecting a statement of principle by the Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 9:22), ought to be adopted by every Christian. The witness for Christ must find a way to establish contact with people who come from different cultural, religious, and racial backgrounds. The Christian communicator must find appropriate ways to "become as" the people to whom he ministers.

Within this total context, however, is a line beyond which we must not move. The loving concern for spiritual accommodation can be pressed to the point where it compromises the Gospel of Christ, sometimes beyond recognition. This kind of accommodation involves one in a grievous sin called syncretism.

Syncretism describes the attempt to gather together what some would call "the best qualities" of various religious points of view into a new and acceptable faith. It is the attempt to "synchronize" the otherwise diverse religious elements currently believed by people so as to make a new religion attractive. [like the health and wealth gospel] The definition of syncretism from a religious point of view is "the process of growth through coalescence of different forms of faith and worship or through accretions of tenets, rights, etc., from those religions which are being superseded" (Webster).

Syncretism is a favourite cultic device. Both the older and the emergent cults almost without exception, have accommodated themselves to existing religious points of view, incorporating older doctrines in their systems of faith along with new and creative heresies. Few cults of our times present much that is really new in the world of religion. Almost invariably they are a rehash of existing concepts, orthodox and heretical. They present warmed-over elements of Protestantism, Catholicism, paganism, pantheism, idolatry, local fetishes, and some pure idiocy.

One can almost imagine a cult promoter looking at a city or a country and asking himself, "What will these people buy? What are their hopes, dreams, prejudices, hang-ups, and how can I give them a religious view that they will support?" The cult promoter is not so foolish as to come on the scene talking initially about the Great Pumpkin or green men from Mars. He talks abut Christ, the Bible, the Holy Spirit, miracles, and other elements of the Christian revelation. The untutored listener is impressed, often believing this person to be a Christian who is just a little wiser than most.

Sensing some new, exploitative possibilities, the cultist glues together a bewildering array of religious components knowing that some of these will strike a chord of response. He reaches into every conceivable human interest, promising many benefits. Most recently the health and wealth gospel seems to be the message that people want to hear so it is incorporated with familiar Christian theological terms and thereby he has created another new cult. The cultist is doing what he is doing because he can.

A similar thing also happens on the mission fields of the world. Missionaries, some of them with merely para-Christian backgrounds, arrive in an area already steeped in religion. Animism, ancestor worship, religious paganism, or raw heathenism are flourishing. Hoping to minimize the offence of their "Christianity," the missionaries accommodate themselves to the local religious climate. Sometimes the resulting religion brings together a regional god, an animal sacrifice, the Virgin Mary, and Jesus Christ all in the same system. Syncretism on mission fields is becoming one of the scandals of the religious world. A syncretistic religion is not Christianity at all; it is a cult. The cults have been syncretists for a long time.

Evangelical Christians look with understandable astonishment at syncretistic cults. We do well to remember, however, that syncretism can be a very subtle, creeping heresy, moving into many unexpected places. We hear talk in churches today that may open the door to acceptance of a religious potpourri that is something other than Christianity.

What is the Gospel? The Gospel is the good news of salvation in Christ which is very categorically defined in the Word of God. When writing to the Corinthian church which was already infected with heresy, the Apostle Paul said,

Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:1-5).

When the Gospel gets wider, more inclusive than Paul's definition in this passage, it ceases to be the Gospel and becomes merely a set of unattainable religious promises. [A good example of this would be the modern day Health and Wealth Gospel as taught by the Faith Movement.]

There are still other forms of subtle syncretism. Many groups of Christians today rejoice in the Gospel plus a wonderful religious heritage. Looking to the past, however, can produce subtle deceptions in our Christian thinking. Heritage can become a dangerous element in the thinking of Christians because it is almost always applied to a human tradition which, at best, is only partially biblical. Indeed, great, time-spanning religious traditions are ordinarily formed to protect by custom certain theological propositions which are unvoiced in the Word of God. "Our sacred heritage" is more often than not a melodramatic expression used to call for loyalty to someone else beside Jesus Christ and something else beside the truth of Scripture.

Another syncretistic tendency has been the movement of the great denominations to include "the imperative of social action" in their preaching of the Gospel. This has been true to the extent that they have been legitimately accused of preaching a social gospel.

Now many evangelical Christians are speaking about "the social implications of the Gospel in our time." Soon the word implications changes to the word responsibilities. It is but a short step to move from here to the use of the word imperatives. The Gospel may indeed have social implications, but this is another, infinitely less important subject than the death of Jesus Christ on the cross and His glorious resurrection. The one produces eternal salvation; the other, endless discussion.

Syncretism, the attempt to synchronize the Gospel of Christ with a godless world, is a deadly virus from which almost no institution recovers. This virus can infect us all and, becoming a plague, can carry us all away.

When the Son of man is come, will He find the faith on the earth?

(from Know the Marks of Cults - the 12 Basic Errors of False Religion by Dave Bresse).