Thursday
Sep182003
Syncretism
Thursday, September 18, 2003 at 10:10AM This post is from the defunct blog "Dying Church"
People may not always know the extent to which they themselves have syncretized and compromised their beliefs with the philosophies of this world because each of us has an immense ability to be self-deceived (Jer. 17:9)...As Hosea indicates, a belief system that simply accepts this world's thinking and combines it with a few Bible verses looks and acts like an unholy prostitution of true faith. (Gary V. Smith, The NIV Application Commentary: Hosea/Amos/Micah, p.71)
Reader Comments (2)
great point. Tough part is, few people I know would be willing to include themselves in that charge of prostituting a few contextless verses with their own subjectivity. Every time I run into one with an absolutely founded, correct, et al take on doctrine, they believe everyone else to be wrong, and cannot leave their campaign trail long enough to look openly. I'd enjoy hearing you dive into context and story for the post.
I find myself guilty of this charge, in the past and probably in the present at times. I also thought of some of the Christian leadership material that's out there which is basically a baptized version of corporate leadership theory. I'm working on this for my sermon Sunday - still formulating some of my thoughts. In the context of Hosea, it was about the Israelites adopting Canaanite culture (including Baal worship) while still believing they were faithful to God.