Syncretism and Christian Tradition: Race and Revelation in the Study of Religious Mixture

Abstract

Syncretism is often regarded among theologians and missiologists as a negative process, even a betrayal of the gospel. In this book by Ross Kane of Virginia Theological Seminary, another view is offered, arguing that reasons for this negative view are often colored by colonialism and even racism, and they depend on too narrow a notion of revelation and Christian tradition. Every expression of Christianity—in the Bible, in the West, in the churches of the Majority World—is the result of religious mixture. Such expressions can enrich each other, and critique each other with surprising benefits for the entire church.