Syncretism
Scripture Reading: 2 Kings 17:24-41
If you’ve ever wondered about the origin of the Samaritans mentioned in the New Testament in stories like the “Samaritan Woman,” or “The Parable of the Good Samaritan,” this passage is a good place to read. In it, we find that when Assyria conquered Israel they moved in people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and settled them among the few remaining Israelites.
Of course, all of these people groups brought their false gods with them. There arose an issue of a large number of people being attacked and killed by lions, a problem the writer associates with God’s judgment, and an assessment the king of Assyria agreed with. To deal with this, he sent Jewish priests back to the land to teach them the ways of Yahweh. They started practicing Judaism again in Israel.
That was good, but the problem was that they kept up the worship of their idols. They merely added Judaism to whatever their other belief systems were. The fancy term for this is “syncretism.” They worshipped the Lord, but they did so within the context of their idolatry. They didn’t abandon idolatry in favor of the worship of the Lord.
You might wonder what relevance this has to us. One of the things that is true of us is we have a hard time seeing our errors as easily as we see the errors of others. When we add anything of our idols to the worship of Christ, we are syncretistic in our faith. Whether that is allegiance to a national identity, a political party, a particular denomination, or our religious traditions; exalting them to a place of equality to Christ is idolatry.
Divided loyalty is disloyalty to Christ.
