Theology Terms Tuesday – Syncretism.
Syncretism. The first known use of the term syncretism is in the are of political pragmatism. Plutarch (A.D 46-120), the Greek biographer and moralist, referred to the banding together the normally divided peoples of Crete to face a common external enemy as sunkretismos. Much later Erasmus (1466-1536), the Renaissance humanist and scholar, used it to speak positively of the coming together of disparate points of view. George Calixtus (1586-1656) developed a school of thought based on a system of principles know as syncretism in which he attempted to harmonize the sects of the Protestants and ultimately the whole church. From the early 1600s, however, the term in Christian writings has generally referred to the replacement or dilution of the essential truths of the gospel through the incorporation of non-Christian elements. Examples of syncretism in the modern Western churches to the use of spiritistic power and protection in African churches, from the rituals of the Night of the Dead in Latin America to the continuance of untransformed ancestral practices Asian Christian households.
The fact that syncretism can be found in every culture and epoch where the church had existed serves as a caution against naively thinking that its eradication will be easily accomplished or that our own church will never include syncretistic ideas or practices.
J.D. Gort et al., Dialogue and Syncretism: An Interdisciplinary Approach.
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