Formal Transformation and Faith Distortion

Abstract

In my first chapter I considered syncretism as over against indigenous Christianity and found their common drive in a “striving for meaning,” with institutions and terms that were relevant for specific historical cultural situations. Looking at syncretism anthropologically, we found that it was frequently activated and held together by any one or more of a number of identifiable forces: the persistence of cohesive clusters of ideas, art orientation to mythological thinking and belief, the demand for a therapeutic system or the notion of the living dead. Very briefly I described indigenous Christianity only enough for it to be recognizable as a viable alternative to syncretism as a “culturally relevant striving for meaning.” In other words, my focus was rather on the nature of syncretism rather than on indigenous Christianity.