Syncretism

I have a difficult relationship with syncretism. I first heard the word regarding "those Catholics" in Latin America who mix the Catholic religion with animism. I also heard that it is a danger for Evangelical missionaries if they let the people they're reaching mix their old life in with their new life. I fear, though, that the "new life" is becoming like the missionary. (By the way, Emmanuel Kolini, outgoing archbishop of Rwanda, has just released a book called Rethinking Life which talks about how missionaries who performed a culture transplant on Africa—without anesthesia—killed it. He offers genuine appreciation for bringing the gospel, but he wishes it wasn't so corrupted by foreign culture.)

My next step in observing syncretism was in conservative, Evangelical culture. Syncretism is most insidious when you are the one living it. We each make decisions that we are comfortable enough with, and soon we're far from our roots. It's a slippery slope! (I hate how people use that sentence.) To me, "far from our roots" means that we have abandoned the foundational worldview that our faith was built on. We started becoming Greek/Gnostic in our thinking, and with the maturation of Modernism, we became the ultimate consumers. Those are the two key damnable features in Evangelical syncretism.

My latest observation of syncretism is Phil Jackson. His pop Zen Buddhism has been extremely effective for him and the Lakers. I refuse to denigrate his religious observation, and it'll be up to the Creator God of the Hebrews to judge him. But I did find his syncretism funny. Commenting on the "curse of the Clippers" brought by owner Donald Sterling, he said, "I'm of that generation that believed in karma. If you do a good mitzvah, maybe you can eliminate some of those things." Somehow his practice includes the Hebrew word for commandment. I'm sure he's not the only one to mix karma and mitzvah. But it shows how religious practice often picks up random tidbits from other cultures. And in the case of consumerism, I should clarify that religious practice is deeply held and undergirds how we live our lives, no matter what we say.