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Causes of Syncretism

It's often thought that syncretism is the result of over contextualising, going too far in enculturalising the good news. This is to misunderstand two things:

  1. The gospel is always incarnate, explained in one culture or another
  2. Too little contextualisation can also cause syncretism. This is because the gospel won't be understood, or doesn't meet the felt needs of the people it's being shared with. These needs can be spiritual, emotional or physical. For example, folk Muslims start to follow Isa, but keep visiting shrines and fortune tellers, because that's what they used to do in a crisis.

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