Sin of Syncretism: Are you guilty?

Today while waiting at a public business I had a seat beside a lady. I made a friendly comment and in doing so she told me that she does yoga and had for years. “I feel so much better thanks to yoga!” she said. I responded “I don't do yoga. It's against my beliefs!” She responded “Yoga isn't a religion. It's an exercise.” Of course being knowledgeable of yoga, I explained to her that yoga is indeed a religious “practice”. “Yoga” is a Hindu religious exercise, meaning “union”, which seeks to unite you with your personal god through postures, meditation, self-hypnosis and asceticism (self-denial). Yes indeed. You are participating in a pagan religious practice through yoga!
.

Our conversation continued: The lady responded “And what religion are you?' My quick response was “I'm a Christian!” She then asked what denomination. I told her that I practice the Baptist belief. Here's the kicker! She responded “I'm an Episcopalian, but we all worship the same God regardless of what religion we are!” That my friend is “syncretism”.

.

Syncretism means to combine and meld differing belief systems in attempt to to create unity and inclusiveness. The lady in the example was very smoothly melding Hinduism into Christianity. She accepted the god Vishnu as equal to JWHW, the true God whose name means “I AM”! This lady is unwittingly heretical. She is in direct violation of the First Commandment.

.

Exodus (KJV) 20:3 “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 5Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God,”

.

Not only was the lady in disrespect of the One True God, but by equating Vishnu and other pagan gods, she was in apostasy! I paraphrased the following verse to the lady (with cordiality of course); John (KJV) 14:6 “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” She had no response! What could she say? Speechless!

.

God is a jealous God. He desires that his children remain true to Him and is hurt when we turn to false gods. As God was writing the commandments, here's what His children were already doing:

.

Exodus (KJV) 32:24 “And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.”

.

No, God wasn't good enough for the rebellious people! The Egyptians from whom God had just saved the Jews, worshiped a bull god, the Sacred Bull which was the Lunar God. Here we have a combination between the worship of an animal and astrology. The Hebrew people were guilty of syncretism. They had smoothly combined the worship if the golden calf (money-mammon) alongside the worship of God.

.

Throughout history the Jews time and again were syncretic. They built golden calves on hilltops, they offered their infants to the pagan God Molech, they followed the stars. The Jews were rebellious, and did one thing well. They easily and often worshiped pagan gods right along with God. Paganism included the golden calf, temple prostitution, witchcraft, astrology, and fertility fertility cults among other deviance's. They even had male temple prostitutes as the Canaanites did. How sordid!

.

God destroyed Israel, thus keeping his end of the Abrahamic Covenant. In their syncretism the Jews lost it all. They were defeated, disbursed and many annihilated. They paid for their syncretic worship! They learned their lesson. By the time Jesus enters the picture, Jews were really careful to avoid syncretism. They were finally true monotheists!

.

Then Jesus was born! The Jews rejected him. They had learned their lesson. Instead of understanding their own God-breathed scripture that tells them that God is the coming Messiah, the Jews were careful not to by syncretic. They saw Jesus as another God. They erred!

.

To understand syncretism one must study Acts Chapter 15. Gentiles Christians who were not circumcised (in violation of Jewish Law) were accepted as fellow believers. The exceptions were prohibitions against :

.

1. Eating blood or meat containing blood (I still don't eat my steak rare).
2. Eating meats from animals improperly slain.
3. Fornication.
4. Idolatry.

.
What did all four of these issues have in common. They were all associated with pagan worship. The Council of Jerusalem was telling the gentiles that they didn't have to keep all the Mosaic Law, but were to abstain from the worship of other gods. The Council validated the First Commandment and condemned the practice of syncretism. It's obvious to any casual reader of the scripture that since Jesus was God manifested in the flesh, the new Christian “cult” was anything but syncretic as is demonstrated by the following:
.
John (KJV) 14:9”Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father;”
.

Acts 4:12 “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”

.

John 14:9 makes it clear that Jesus is God, hence no syncretism there, and Acts 4:12 tells us that Jesus is the way and only way to salvation.

.

In summary, syncretism in any form is a sin. Accepting pagan gods on an equal footing with God is damning. While its in vogue to be inclusive, accepting the gods of others on equal footing, not only condemns the so-called Christian, but damns the pagan as well. Our mission as Christians is to tell the world about Jesus, not to usurp our own Christianity! Likewise, religious practices of pagan gods is disrespectful to God for he is a “jealous God”! A Christian must not be inclusive in their worship of God. They must not practice Yoga, Dharma, Karma, Om, meditation, the balance of life forces, the marital arts, astrology, animism, nature worship, or any other pagan religious deceptions. You open yourself to the forces of evil just as the Jews did in combining the Egyptian Bull Worship with Judaism.

.

It's so easy! It's so wrong! It's so damning!