February 6, 2012 by Allen Coleman 1 comments

Posted in: Mission

In a recent sermon series, I talked a lot about sectarianism versus syncretism. The two are best contrasted in the persons of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Pharisees had a low regard for culture, thus seperated as sectarians who today would dismiss the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) to go into all the world. In contrast, and hated even more in their day, were the Sadducees who had a low regard for holiness. Thus, they became indistinguishable from the culture as syncretists who today would dismiss the Great Commandment (Matthew 22:37) to love God before all else. The implication for both was irrelevance and unfaithfulness.

Today, these are still very real traps that Christians can fall into when we either let go of culture (sectarianism) or let go of the Gospel (syncretism). Instead, we are to both contend for the Gospel truths (Jude 3) and contextualize for the Gospel mission (1 Cor. 9:19-23). This is a much harder line to walk, which is why Jesus sends a Helper (John 15:26) who empowers us (Romans 15:19) and promises to be with us always (Matthew 28:20). 

In concluding our Missio Dei sermon series, our emphasis was on the dangers and pitfalls of syncretism. Syncretism occurs when we take ourselves too seriously and God too lightly. One of the places we see this reality play out is in our corporate gatherings. For example, when we feel a pastor pushes too hard on our sin and idols calling for self-evaluation of our sick hearts (Jeremiah 17:9) . . . this is when we tend to bristle the most. Yet, when he takes an obvious sexual innuendo and titles his sermon series on the book of Mark "That's what He said," we find it funny and creative. This is indicative of reversing what Paul pointed out so clearly in Romans:

"Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things." (Romans 1:22-23)

On Sundays, I attempt to regularly use humor to poke fun of others and myself, but always try to take God very seriously. For some, they may have a hard time when I do this because it highlights the role reversal in which they take themselves much too serious, but fail to extend the same to the God that created them. Syncretism occurs when we take ourselves and others more seriously than Jesus. What tends to happen is we then compromise what Scripture forbids, aggrandize what Scripture allows, doing so in the name of love and respect.

But what about loving God? What about respecting Jesus? Yes, Jesus said "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations," but the rest of Matthew 28 is often ignored or left out. We fail to highlight the means by which we are to this:

". . . teaching them to oberserve all that I have commanded you." (Matthew 28:20)

Further, that same command begins by pointing out our limitations:

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." (Matthew 28:18)

This is a stark reminder of exactly who our Senior Pastor is (1 Peter 5:4) and who decides the means of our mission to the culture. When we place all the emphasis on "go . . . make disciples" with very little emphasis on ". . . observe all that I have commanded," we become very ineffective missionaries with very ineffective churches. The same is true of sectarians who fail similarly, vice versa. We will talk more about that in my next posting.

1 Comments