"So, Rob, just what is the bottom line?"

“…there is nothing more contagious than fallacies when they have once succeeded in awakening admiration.”[1]

In an on-going discussion with him, Jeff Mikels put two good questions to me. These questions are not unlike the questions of a number of people who’ve heard some of my thoughts on these matters.

1. “I would like for you to summarize in just one paragraph what you are trying to say or what you are struggling with.”
2. “What aspects of modern Christianity have been syncretized, how has the gospel been affected, and what difference does it make?”

I think the best answer to the first question is the paragraph he quoted from me just after asking the question. I’ll provide it here:

“My concern is syncretism[2] – merging Biblical thinking with pagan worldviews and the teachings of demons,[3] and where has that led and is that leading the modern church astray? How has that influenced our preaching of the gospel? How has it rendered us powerless in ministry both in the church and to the lost? We like to think of science as neutral, yet I think it a subtle avenue of access we’ve given to the enemy – one of many and probably the most subtle.”

For myself, I think the proposition that the church has syncretized sound doctrine with the world’s wisdom is clear from my reading, though much of what I’ve read was not known to me two years ago, nor are most of my brothers and sisters aware of it. Actually, I’ve found that few, even when made aware of it, seem to consider it much of a concern, which leads them, like Jeff, to the second question. In a future post, I want to address the concern with syncretism in general before going on too far. Briefly, though, if it’s occurred and hasn’t been previously dealt with, there is a deleterious affect which may have yet to be discerned. The difficulty of that discernment is what I want to address in this post.

Jeff’s second question is more difficult to answer. I don’t have an authoritative answer or any hard-fast conclusions at this time, but I have some suspicions. I’ve discussed them with some people who, like Jeff, want to know the bottom line without hearing the reason for those suspicions. So, I’ve jumped to the bottom line, but when they hear it, they reject the possible conclusions outright as baseless or ridiculous. I can understand that. Without hearing the reasons for the conclusions, they can sound pretty far out there. So, it’s a kind of catch-22 situation.

To make matters worse, the foundation for the possible conclusions is very complex, entailing ancient Greek philosophy, the history of mathematics, science and medicine, and much of Church history, let alone an understanding of the various systems of occult thought and practice that have had their influence. That’s a real plateful for me and my would-be readers.

So, in order to try to give the suspicions earlier on in the conversation without losing my audience before I’ve even gotten started, let me elaborate why I think we can be completely unaware of syncretism – serious error in our thinking – and why it might be hard to detect. Then I will present the practical ways it may be affecting us with some explanation of each. After that, perhaps, some of you will follow with me through the history of how it took place to see if perhaps there’s some basis to it. Actually, the history is very much needed in order to see where the error came in, what it is, and what part of it has carried over to today.

The quote at the opening of this post gives a hint at this. It’s from the thinking of Francis Bacon, not in regards to Christian syncretism but rather what he perceived as the intellectual blindness of his contemporaries and predecessors. I leave it with you in anticipation of my next post in which I will elaborate how easy it is for us to be blissfully unaware of error.

Rob

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[1] Rossi, Paolo, translated by Sacha Rabinovitch, Francis Bacon: From Magic to Science (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968). Originally published as Francesco Bacone: Dalla Magia alla Scienza (Editori Laterza, Bari 1957), p. 56.

[2] Syncretism – “Reconciliation or fusion of differing systems of belief, as in philosophy or religion, especially when success is partial or the result is heterogeneous.” Definition from Houghton Mifflin Online Dictionary. Examples of syncretism of concern to Christians would be the Israelites’ mixing of the worship of the Lord God with the worship of the gods of the peoples around them, and the Catholic church putting Christian veneers over pagan and animistic practices such as the veneration of saints, saints days and various other holidays. I will address other, much more subtle cases.

[3] 1 Timothy 4:1