Theological and Philosophical Responses to Syncretism: Beyond the Mirage of Pure Religion by Patrik Fridlund and Mika Vähäkangas (eds.) starts from the observation that there is a substantial gap between religionsâ self-understanding and the empirical results of religious studies concerning religious blending. Even in theology of religion, one often portrays religions as if they were entities fundamentally separate from each other. The aims of this book are to elaborate theologically the consequences of syncretism to Christian faith and of syncretism to philosophy. By creating a critical interchange between theological, philosophical and empirical approaches to religion, this book challenges the conventional views of purity of religions prevailing in theology and philosophy as well as proposes theological and philosophical ways forward.
Contributors are: Jonas Adelin, Stephen Bevans, Gavin dâCosta, Patrik Fridlund, Lotta Gammelin, Elizabeth Harris, Jerker Karlsson, Paul Linjamaa, Kang-San Tan, Mika Vähäkangas.
Mika Vähäkangas, Th.D. (1998), University of Helsinki, Finland, is Professor of Mission Studies and Ecumenics at Lund University, Sweden. He has published widely on African Christianity and mission studies including In Search for Foundations for African Catholicism (Brill, 1999).
Contributors
Introduction
1 Syncretism as the Theoretical Foundation of Religious Studies
âJerker Karlsson
2 Gnosticism as Inherently Syncretistic? Identity Constructions Among Ancient Christians and Protestant Apologetes
âPaul Linjamaa