World Religions and Cults Volume 3: Materialistic and Naturalistic Religions by Bodie Hodge & Roger Patterson

Author:Bodie Hodge & Roger Patterson [Hodge, Bodie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL067030, REL017000
ISBN: 9781614580393
Publisher: Master Books
Published: 2016-11-20T16:00:00+00:00

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1. These are Bible-based religions or those that borrow heavily from the Bible but then deviate. Volume 1 of the World Religions and Cults dealt extensively with these counterfeits of Christianity, showing biblical Christianity as the only viable option.

2. Aristotle further elaborates this devastating case as the “Third Man argument” as a refutation.

Chapter 11

Christian Syncretism with Evolution

and Other Belief Systems (Compromise)

Bodie Hodge

We live in strange times — I probably don’t have to convince you of that.1 Perhaps all one needs is to read the news over the course of about one week to get a small grip on the complexities of our era.

An example of a strange occurrence is found when we looked at Latin American Syncretism in Volume 2 of the World Religions and Cult series. We, in the Western world, can easily spot where Roman Catholicism had blended with paganism, and the adherents couldn’t easily see it. We see compromise all around us where two opposing viewpoints are meshed into one strange concoction (brought “in sync” with each other, or when applied to religions, syncretized).

The Israelites were prone to do this from Moses’ day (Numbers 25:1–9) through Solomon’s day (1 Kings 11:1–4) and made complete in the day of our Lord (when the Israelites joined with Caesar over Christ as their ultimate authority — John 19:15).

One would think it a crazy notion to believe that solid churches that paved the road for Christianity in many parts of the world would have now become intertwined with false religions. But, with sadness, it is true.

As citizens of once dominant Christian countries, we Christians in the USA, UK, Germany, etc. never expected such compromise to fill our own backyard. We expect to see this elsewhere, but not in our own pews . . . right? How wrong we are if we think such a thing. Does the Church in many parts of the Western world realize they have done the same thing as the pagans and other syncretists?

As an example, a Christian from Latin America can come to the USA or the UK and easily spot where Christians, leaders and laymen, have mixed our Christianity with the religion of evolution. So often, our compromised Christian brethren do not believe they have done the same thing that the Israelites did when they mixed their godly worship with Baal worship — they are just using the modern religion of the day, which is a secular view of evolution.

It is time to step back and have a look at our Christianity. Is it purely biblical or is it blended into a strange concoction with the evolutionary religion of our culture — or other religions like those in the East (New Age, Hinduism, Mysticism, etc.)?

The Four Aspects of Evolution

What is evolution? In its broadest sense, evolution is the naturalistic explanation of the origin and function of the universe, the “general theory of evolution (GTE)” or, in laymen’s terms, “molecules-to-man,” “electron-to-engineer,” or “goo-to-you.” But within this concept there are really four types of evolution,

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