Syncretism and the Authority of Scripture Melinda Selmys Originally published in Issue I of Vulgata,  October, 2001.

It is now quite fashionable to claim that all religions are equally true -- mine is true for me, yours is true for you, and in the end it all comes down to the same thing anyway. There is an idea that all the gods are just different manifestations or understandings of the same God and that this God doesn't care how you worship him. What matters is that you're a pretty good person, sincere, and worships in the way that they feel is best for them. Naturally, those who advocate this position consider any sort of exclusivity claims to be nothing more than religious intolerance or self righteousness, and they try to brush them off as a sort of unimportant form of spiritual immaturity. But let's take a look at the implications of such an idea from a Christian perspective and ask whether it is even logically possible in the face of Christian theism.

For syncretism to be true, exclusivity must be non-essential to Christianity.  After all, if the belief that Christianity is the only true faith is absolutely essential to Christianity, then syncretism is impossible -- either Christianity would have to be true (in which case, by necessity, all other religions would have to be false) or all other religions would have to be true (in which case Christianity would be false.) So can there be Christianity without a claim of exclusivity?

Scriptures would strongly suggest that there cannot. Following in the steps of our Jewish heritage, we believe that the Lord God of Israel is the One God, the Only God, and the True God, and that all others are pretenders, imposters, idols, demons, and so forth. The worship of these false Gods is not merely untrue, it is a grave sin against the highest commandment: though shalt love the Lord they God with thy whole heart, and they whole mind. You shall have no other Gods before Him." The Bible is full of references to God punishing the Israelites for idolatry and the worship of false Gods. It is full of exhortations against the practice of non-Jewish (and in the New Testament, non-Christian)religions. We are forbidden to participate in non-Christian festivals, to perform non-Christian rituals, to eat food that has been sacrificed to other gods, to have any truck or commerce whatsoever with any deity besides the Christian God. Jesus Himself reiterates the Mosaic teaching to love only the Lord your God, He makes no concessions to worship of other deities, and insists that He has not come to change one letter of the law. He is absolutely clear on the idea that He alone is the Way, the Truth and the Light, and that there is no way to the Father except through Him. St. Paul picks up the theme again, repeatedly admonishing the Church against idol worship, insisting that there can be no peace between the god of this world and the followers of the one true God (Christ), and that only by the grace of God, through faith in God, by the blood of Christ, can anyone come to salvation.

Now these teachings can clearly not be reconciled with any syncretistic notion of religion. The very Christian scriptures are packed with phrases that, to the mind of a modernist, seem absolutely rife with self-righteousness and religious intolerance -- and they can't be excused by saying that they are simply the result of out-dated Jewish nationalism, or of some sort of ego complex of St. Paul's, because they come just as fiercely from the lips of Christ Himself. This leaves only three possibilities: either the syncretists are wrong, and it is impossible to reconcile Christianity to other faiths, Jesus is a liar, or the scriptures do not accurately record what Jesus says.

Now let's examine the latter two possibilities, to see if they are real possibilities or not. Now if Jesus was a liar, (and please note, if Jesus was wrong, even in a single one of His teachings, He is a liar -- after all He does claim to be God, to be Truth -- in short to be incapable of any sort of error), then Christians are fools, and Christianity is wrong. After all, two of the most fundamental beliefs of Christianity are that God is Good (and hence truthful) and that Jesus is God. Therefore, if Jesus told a single lie, in all of His lifetime, or committed a single sin, then He is not God and Christianity is wrong -- in which case syncretism still falls, because it claims that all religions, Christianity included, are right. So the claim that Jesus is a liar, improbable as that claim is, cannot save syncretism.

But what about the idea that scripture is faulty -- that Jesus really taught religious tolerance, and Jesus didn't really claim to be the only Son of God, and that Jesus knew that He was just one amongst many prophets, gurus, avatars, and messengers of God -- but that the scriptural writers changed or misunderstood what He said. Okay, now if scripture is faulty, and it doesn't really record what Jesus said, then how on earth would we have any idea what Jesus said? Wouldn't it be just as likely that the scriptural writers messed up the parts that we do like -- making Him less harsh, more loving, more forgiving, less radical -- than the parts that we don't like -- all the bits about Hell, and exclusivism, and sin? Wouldn't that be more inline with human psychology? I mean, imagine that a sort of New Age guru sprang up on the scene, and breaking into a highly exclusivistic religious context (ancient Judaism), He begins to preach a gospel of love, forgiveness, universal salvation, Heaven without repentance, liberality, and a universal religion of light in which all faiths were equally true, and all walks equally valid. What sort of followers would this man attract? Well, we can easily see this by looking around us -- there are many such gurus alive today, and they have many followers. And I think I can say, with complete certainty, that not a single one of these followers is even remotely like St. Peter or St. Paul. But be that as it may, how likely it is that the followers of this great exponent of tolerance and pluralism would be the sort of people who would, immediately upon his death, change His teachings to include Hellfire, damnation and exclusivism? People who wanted One God Almighty, alone and supreme, one faith, one truth, and damnation and punishment for all who failed to believe it would not have been attracted to the cult of a 1st century Neale Donald Walsch. They would have dismissed him as a quack -- not written gospels about him the doctrines they didn't like taken out.

Furthermore, what would have been gained by the early Church changing Christ's teachings on exclusivity? Nothing, really, except a lot of unnecessary persecution. Now certainly Jesus would have been hailed as a blasphemer by the Jewish authorities had He preached that all the gods were one, but we have to remember, ancient Palestine was full of blasphemers who were saying exactly that -- and the Romans were not interested in executing them for the Jewish authorities. But more importantly, we need to keep in mind that the Christians were persecuted by both the Jews and the Romans. What's so significant about that? Well, the Romans were Polytheists, and modern syncretism is really just sort of gussied up Polytheism with a new label. The Romans didn't believe that all the gods were one -- but they certainly thought that all the gods were equally valid. Every time they took over a new place, they incorporated its gods into their cosmology and moved on. The Heavens were filled with gods, all of them equally valid, and the Romans didn't really care which of them you personally worshipped -- each person was free to choose the deity they thought best for them. So if the early Christians had shown up preaching a new god, no better than all the others, and who respected all of the others as equally valid -- a God of love, and compassion, and tolerance, the Romans wouldn't have cared. Even if the god got popular, no big deal, because belief in this new god would not have excluded the Roman religion. But that isn't what happened. The Christians showed up and said "you are worshipping idols and false gods. We refuse to sacrifice to them. We refuse to have anything to do with them. Repent and follow Jesus Christ, who alone is the one True God, or you shall suffer eternal damnation." That is why they were thrown into the coliseum.

Now if Jesus hadn't said it, why would they have believed it? Why would his own first disciples have died for it? St. Peter was with Him throughout His ministry, and he was martyred, in Rome, by the Romans, for preaching His doctrines. Why? Well obviously, he thought that Jesus had been teaching exclusivism. He had heard Christ preach it, he believed it, and he demonstrated his belief with his life. And the same thing with most of the other apostles. All of those who were nearest to Jesus during His lifetime, all of those who had heard Him preach on multiple occasions, all of those who knew Him, believed that He had taught that He was the only Way, the only Truth, and the only Life. They believed it so strongly that they were tortured, exiled, crucified, stoned, beaten, ridiculed, and otherwise persecuted for this belief. Would they have done this had Christ not really taught it? No.

Therefore, the scriptures must speak truly -- at least on this point. Jesus could not have taught anything resembling modern syncretism, or else the actions, character and writings of His followers would not make sense. And if Jesus taught that His way was the only way, then again, syncretism has to be wrong. Either Christianity is right, in which case it is the only true religion, or Christianity is wrong, and some other religion, or group of religions, is right. In either case, though, the idea that all religions really amount to the same thing, and that all are equally true, is logically impossible. No matter how religiously tolerant you want to be, and no matter how much you would like for everyone to be right, the fact is that either Jesus is the only way, or He is no way at all.