Dr Paul Allen

Zephaniah the prophet pointedly condemned the mixing of other religions with faith in the one true God (sometimes called syncretism). Judah had become a people who bowed in worship to the true God but who also relied on the god Molek (Zephaniah 1:5). Zephaniah described their adoption of pagan culture (v. 8) and warned that as a result, God would drive the people of Judah from their homeland. Yet God never stopped loving His people. His judgment was to show them their need to turn to Him. So Zephaniah encouraged Judah to “Seek righteousness, seek humility” (2:3). Then the Lord gave them tender words promising future restoration: “At that time I will gather you; at that time I will bring you home” (3:20). It’s easy to condemn examples of obvious syncretism. But in reality, all of us easily blend God’s truth with the assumptions of our culture. We need the Holy Spirit’s guidance to test our beliefs against the truth of God’s Word and then to stand for that truth confidently and lovi

Syncretism - The term comes from the Greek sunkretizein, “to unite,” and in the ancient world it seems to have referred to the alliance of cities for political purposes. Since the Reformation, however, Christian writers have come to use syncretism to refer to the dilution or corruption of Christianity through the blending of orthodox doctrines and practices with alien philosophical and/or religious elements. The sin of which Israel was guilty, and which is always a danger for contemporary Christians, was and is not simply an impersonal, technically incorrect mixture of contradictory religious doctrines or rituals. Rather, it is what the Bible calls religious adultery, which is, as Jesus put it, the failure to love, worship, and serve the true God with all of one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30). You see, there is a kind of syncretistic blending that is relatively innocent and even productive. Our culture loves to mix things up, but that might not be an altogether ba