‘Syncretism’ was a word I learned at theological college. It was pretty obvious from the way it was expressed that ‘syncretism’ is a VERY BAD THING. It basically means the attempted reconciliation or fusion of different or opposing principles (systems of belief), practices, or parties, as in philosophy or religion. It is most often used by one religious group to demonstrate how another has become contaminated by elements of the dominant culture, thus rendering the group impure, suspect and, perhaps, heretical.
What is interesting about syncretism is the fact that whenever the charge is made, it almost always is selective. So, the ‘pure’ church can distinguish itself from the ‘impure’ (syncretistic) church by identifying the particular accommodations made by the other group to the ‘false’ culture. Of course, one of the biblical texts that can be ignored here is the one that refers to ‘motes and beams’ (or splinters and planks).
It might seem odd that I have moved from misery about popular television yesterday to something more esoteric today, but the reason is simple: I have been reading a very interesting book. While at a conference in Paderborn last Monday, Geiko Mueller-Fahrenholz gave me a copy of his book, America’s Battle for God: A European Christian Looks at Civil Religion (2007, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids/Cambridge). It is a fascinating analysis of the American psyche as seen from a European perspective and in chapter 3 he remarks on the selective nature of syncretism when used as a charge against others of the same faith. Having noted that superheroes such as Neo in The Matrix ‘are variations of the Christ figure, but with a “gospel message” markedly different from the biblical one’, he goes on to remark:
The point that concerns me most is that what we encounter here is an interesting – yet irritating – example of syncretism: that is, a melange of Christian and non-Christian images and ideas… I am not overly concerned about religious syncretism, as long as it is understood as a phenomenon that is both unavoidable and constantly in need of self-critical appraisal. Wherever the Christian faith… has taken root, it has to some extent absorbed the cultural habits and religious traditions of its cultural context.
Now, that is undeniable. I hear people scream about all sorts of ‘compromises’ that suit the particular prejudices of particular groups, but no group of Christians (or human beings…) can be exempt from the cultural and social reality of being in the world at a particular time and place. Mueller-Fahrenholz goes on:
But the process of syncretism becomes dangerous when its reality is being denied: in other words, when and where religious communities claim that their message is the “pure” ancestral faith, the “orthodox” representation of the foundational message, then syncretism borders on heresy.
He then singles out conservative evangelical groups - but the critique clearly applies to other ‘parties’ as well – as being ‘deeply influenced by … modern … ideologies, though the movements’ members insist that they are nothing but purely biblical in their orientation’. He concludes as follows:
…it is this claim of orthodoxy that prevents them from seeing how deeply their faith has been invaded by contemporary, neoreligious winner-loser dichotomies.
Basically, his charge is that those who claim most confidently to be ‘biblical’ are simply being (a) blind to their own syncretism and (b) selective in identifying (according to other assumed criteria) the ‘sins’ of others as being syncretistic while assuming that their own lifestyle is ‘orthodox’. For example, Jesus says a lot about money and little about sex. I have been asked to withold Communion from someone having an affair, but nobody has ever asked me to withold Communion from someone whose financial practices might be dodgy. Mueller-Fahrenholz goes on to look at American civil religion and the massive blind spots in American Christian culture – possibly only visible from the outside; the same exercise needs to be done for Europe. But the point is simple: we are all inevitably syncretists and, like alcoholism, the first step to addressing it is to admit it.
We see this running through the arguments in the Anglican Communion as well as other churches and religions. Half a century ago the Anglican Communion handled the matter of polygamy in Africa with wisdom, trust and generosity. The church always needs to have its robust debates about the Bible and ethics, but it also needs the debates to be characterised by what I have called in another context a ‘confident humility’. I can always spot the syncretistic compromises of my neighbour whilst remaining blind to my own and convinced of my own purity of approach.
I think it was the great German evangelical theologian Helmut Thielicke who was asked in a 1950s American seminary what he thought of women wearing make-up – the current divisive taboo. He thought in silence before saying something like: ‘It offends me so much that the tears run down my cheeks, along my cigar and drop into my beer’ – thus identifying a few other American evangelical ‘sins’ that simply weren’t ‘sins’ in Germany. Point made.
May 30, 2009 at 5:11 am
Yes, let’s give those hated “conservative evangelicals” another kicking – a good way to win points and approval from those who dispense the prizes in the Church of England!
As for European Christian culture – well, there doesn’t seem to be that much left. Ask Rocco Butiglione and look at the European Constitution, where not even the Pope could get inserted a reference to Christianity as utterly foundational to Europe. Look at the “symbol” of Europe now – a Phoenician girl sitting on a theriomorphic Zeus. Probably quite appropriate.
“For example, Jesus says a lot about money and little about sex. I have been asked to withold Communion from someone having an affair, but nobody has ever asked me to withold Communion from someone whose financial practices might be dodgy.”
A false comparison. St Paul is very clear on public sexual scandal and communion (1 Cor 5). If you were an accountant or an investigator from internal revenue, you might be in a position to know for sure about somebody’s “financial practices”, but then you wouldn’t likely be their pastor.
May 30, 2009 at 7:24 am
Nick, thank you for introducing me to another topic, which I knew nothing about.
What I find so sad is that positions are taken and adopted and defended from behind barricades of prejudice and blindness to the Truth of the good news given to us by Jesus Christ.
Tolerence and respect for others is missing in this context.
May 30, 2009 at 10:02 am
Mark, grow up and learn to read. I have only ever blocked one ‘comment’ on this blog and that was because I feared the person was embarrassing himself without realising it; I nearly blocked yours. Don’t you see that your response perfectly illustrates what I was writing about? I was decidedly NOT scoring points, but opening up what I think is an interesting and important point for discussion.
The chapter I quoted from was about apocalyptism in the light of the Left Behind series of books. Can his point not be valid even if he picks the ‘wrong’ target? And did you not read my qualifying parenthesis? Can you not read something without just spotting the gaps you want to find to justify your ‘right’ prejudice?
Just for the record: I am an evangelical who is conscious of my planks, but suspect there might be other planks I haven’t spotted yet. Secondly, the sneer about ‘prizes’ from the Church of England’ shows how silly your response is. As for your last paragraph, it is even sillier.
Try not to deliberately miss the point.
May 30, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Nick, a good response to Mark B, I thought you were very fair, such as
“…He then singles out conservative evangelical groups – but the critique clearly applies to other ‘parties’ as well…”
Thought-provoking, and typically measured whilst giving an opinion – which, despite being a Bishop, we must let you have!
May 30, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Nick, thanks for the post. It reminded me of a cartoon from Os Guinness’ book The Gravedigger File, which I’ve posted here http://bit.ly/4gfjf with a link back to your post.
May 30, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Thanks, Nick, for opening up a really useful and interesting seam of thinking. Perhaps one reason there is such diversity among Christians is that everybody finds it so easy to be aware of the besetting sins of the next lot round, whilst less aware about their own. Thus I’ve been lectured aggressively by Anti-Charismatics on the dangers of excessive emtionalism of the sort they wouldn’t fall for in a million years, and soon after lectured by Charismatics on the dangers of formalism. Both, of course, are entirely right from their own point of view, and as lng as everyone has some way of listening to the others, there is some chance of reality and growth…
May 31, 2009 at 7:54 am
Nick, I apologize for my sarcastic tone and choice of words and (partially) accept your rebuke. What I was responding to was the overall tenor of your remarks (in this post and others), which is to fault evangelicals explicitly, while having little or nothing to say about other ‘parties’. You have or had plenty of vocal liberals in your diocese who openly scorn and denounce evangelicals and evangelical theology and promote the new homosexualist ethic (e.g. Colin Slee, Giles Frazer) but you never seem to manage more than a mild ‘tut’ in reply – rather than an explicit theological engagement with their claims (not their persons). This seems a much more pressing issue to me, and more illustrative of the Niebuhrian Christ-Culture question than whether 1950s American evangelicals should have worn makeup. (But FTR let me say that Tammy Faye Bakker’s more recent use of makeup was definitely sinful!
And looking at the wretched state of Christianity in Europe, its empty churches, and burgeoning mosques, I do wonder whether a European should point his finger at America – which is also a lot more secularized than some realize.)
It is, after all, only evangelicals who claim to be – or to strive to be – ‘biblical’ in their lifestyle, which was the subject of the post. Catholics believe other sources to be be authoritative, while liberals freely reject anything in Scripture that conflicts with their sense of reason (e.g. the Bible’s rejection of homosexuality).
Nick, you have said that you were raised as a Baptist, and I’m sure those values still feature in your thinking. But in your writings you come across as more of a kindly, generic “postevangelical” with moderately leftish sympathies. Such an outlook can lead people to stigmatize conservatives as ‘puritans’ and to romanticize ‘rebels’ – replaying our youthful dreams and heroes, perhaps, like ‘Che Jesus’? Fair enough – but that isn’t the classical Anglican evangelicalism of Packer, Stott and Green, even if it has echoes of it.
May 31, 2009 at 8:54 am
Mark, thank you for a more reasoned response. I think I want to say a couple of things about your reply:
1. This blog is necessarily partial and selective. I cannot write about everything and anything. I tend to go where my curiosity takes me and am not writing polemic for the sake of banging any particular drum. This puts me outside the other blogs you read and I shouldn’t be judged in the same way as them.
2. You generalise without experience of what you criticise. The Diocese of Southwark is brilliant – partly because the matters that preoccupy you are openly discussed and debated. We have some amazing clergy and churches serving parishes that have been abandoned by every other denomination. We also have churches that are growing – and they are not all evangelical. It is no good trying to pretend that there is some evangelical formula that guarantees growth to ‘the faithful’ and decline to the rest. Reality is very different from the picture you get through a selective reporting of Fraser and Slee – both of whom I know and like.
3. What is your actual experience of Europe? Not reading and blogging, but actually living and breathing here? Yes, we have battles, but the church is far more lively and intelligent here than much of what pours over the Atlantic. I try hard to resist responding to your caricatures of Europe and England with equally stupid and dismissive caricatures of the USA and its (if we are to believe what we see and read and hear) theologically/historically/culturally illiterate people. Reality is always different from such caricatures – but I think you read some very polemical blogs (that I wouldn’t bother with if I was looking for genuine observation and some adherence to the ninth commandment) and draw instant conclusions.
4. It is NOT only evangelicals who claim to be ‘biblical’. That is a crass over-simplification and simply not true. Or, if it is true in the USA, it certainly is not here. It would take too long to give examples, but there are plenty in my own Episcopal Area of churches of all hues who are ‘biblical’ (but also have the humility to see where they fail). You are right that I hold those who claim to be exclusively ‘biblical’ to a higher standard – that is surely reasonable? And that is why I have asked some of the ‘biblical’ people who behave badly to justify on biblical grounds their dishonesty, subterfuge and lying. I don’t get an answer.
5. Your last paragraph is an arrogance. I would not dream of summarising you on the basis of what I read on here. If I did, it would not be flattering and I doubt you would recognise it. Can you not see that the same might apply the other way round?
6. When I started this blog I resolved never to write about sex or the narrow preoccupations of a church which enjoys talking to itself. Plenty of other people can do all that stuff. I am more interested in following my particular curiosities elsewhere. I am far more interested in musing out in the big wide world than becoming another niche blog for people eager to check (and damn) the credentials of bishops. You might not like that, but that is how it is.
May 31, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Thank you for your reply, Nick – I think I understand better what you are about in your blog, even if I still think there are nettles (especially in questions of sexuality) that you should grasp. I say this because you will not be unaware of how Anglicanism has been utterly riven in North America over this – though many of us think the issue is not so much about sex but as a quite counterfeit understanding of the Gospel and the Trinity, that is being played out in so many ways in Tec and ACoC. There has been huge suffering for standing for the traditional Anglican way – even that godly man Jim Packer was ‘deposed’ in New Westminster.
But this is your blog and I appreciate the stimulus you give to various issues and your real concern to communicate the Christian faith to the unchurched.
May 31, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Mark, thank you. I do understand something of Anglicanism in the USA and I would agree that there are deeper issues of which the sexual controversy is a symptom rather than the essence. But, I also have to check my own understanding because I am subject to what other people report. Meeting a range of American bishops at Lambeth last year demonstrated a range of theologies and I don’t want to tar everyone in TEC with the same brush. Perhaps I am saying that I don’t trust my own selective readings of other people’s polemics.
I suspect we will have much in common, but some things about which we will disagree. But I hope we can at least do so respectfully and with the humility that we both might have something to learn.
Many thanks for your response.