Syncretism

A few days ago I was reading an article about how North American evangelicals can often spot the syncretism within the Catholic church, especially in other cultures, but fail to notice it's own. I think this is rather astute commentary on a large part of the problem facing evangelical Christianity.

This morning I was reading a book to my children about Mexican culture. The book went into details about the Day of the Dead. It described how Mexicans will bring food sacrifices for the spirits of the dead relatives into the Catholic churches and have processions led by their priests.

As evangelicals we like to think that we are better then that. We don't bring pagan practices into our churches. We're the ones that hold the truth and can reach the lost.

The longer I observe N.A. evangelicalism the more I realize that this is simply cultural arrogance. The N.A. church is just as corrupted by pagan practices as Central American Catholicism. We sacrifice at the alter of Caesar when we bring patriotism into our churches. We bow before the idol of comfort whenever we try to justify not forfeiting all our possessions for the sake of the kingdom of God. We trust in another master when we put our faith in government to bring needed change. There are more minor pagan practices that I could mention but these are the big ones.

We are supposed to be set apart from society, completely different, wholeheartedly committed to our king. This is not what I see in evangelical Christianity. It is worldly, weak, selfish and similar to the world in almost all ways. Honestly, I wonder if N.A. evangelical Christianity is no better off than Central American Catholic Christianity. I pray that those that see that the house is burning will get out before it's too late.