Reflections on Firm Foundations, Syncretism, and My Own Journey

     When I was going to school with New Tribes Missions, one of the things they taught us about was their teaching curriculum called "Firm Foundations." They developed this curriculum for missions work in remote tribal settings because they had found that attempting to teach the people the biblical stories and narratives and getting them to understand them in the way they were trying to teach wasn't going as planned. What was happening was they were filtering the Biblical stories through their own tribal worldviews, which could be radically different from tribe to tribe as much as it was from our own western, Christianized worldview, and coming up with very different perspectives and conclusions in a process called “syncretism.” They realized that if they were going to get the tribal people to understand what they were teaching the way they wanted them to understand it they were going to have to start from the very beginning and rebuild their entire worldview and cosmology so that when it came to the Gospel narrative, the tribal people would be on the same page.
     While I don't necessarily agree with all of NTM's theology anymore, what this did teach me was that attempting to introduce a new spiritual teaching or understanding requires either that you work within the worldview of the listener, or you do the exceptionally hard work of relaying the foundations and structure of the listener's world view, and this is difficult, tricky, and you have to be careful with it or else you could totally pull the rug out from under that person's foundational beliefs and assumptions of the world. This kind of disillusionment can totally destroy a person psychologically.
      People have three potential responses to challenges to their worldviews. The first is to just reject and dismiss the new information outright as fabricated or false, regardless of the evidence. This is a fear response. The second is to do the opposite, and accept the new information out of hand whether the evidence supports it or not. This is also a fear response. The third is to do the hard work of examining the evidence, whether it is genuine or not, and if necessary changing one’s worldview to fit the evidence at hand.
     In the Scriptures, part of why we see what we see is because God chooses not to attempt to re-lay the foundations of the people’s cultural worldviews. Instead, He frequently works within them without passing judgment to interact with and teach the people, only revealing new information to their worldview gradually over time, even centuries. He always works with people where they are at psychologically. And so He does not correct the idea that the Earth has corners or that it sits on pillars. He does not correct, at first, the idea that there are other gods, He only demands that they not be worshiped or followed, and is addressed as the “God of gods.” He does not initiate the idea of blood sacrifice, He only works with the already established understanding of it to alleviate guilt and offer some kind of assurance of forgiveness to the deranged human mind, later saying clearly that He didn’t want the sacrifices to begin with. He does not forbid slavery, but establishes clear laws for their humane treatment. He does not demand equality for women at first, but again establishes laws within the cultural context so they are not mistreated. God understood that syncretism was a thing, but rather than immediately try to correct everyone’s misunderstanding He used it and worked with it to accomplish His purposes.
     As I think about these things, they become immediately pertinent because I tend to write about things which challenge many people’s worldviews. I do this because, after the things I’ve studied, I think it necessary to challenge them to re-establish an authentic, first century Christian faith and practice. Just that idea alone is potentially a rug pulling challenge to a person’s belief system, that what they’ve been taught is not what was first taught and held, and is the product of two thousand years of “drift.” Looking back, I know I can come off as more heavy handed and combative than I mean to. The truth is, when I do, I am arguing more with who I used to be and what I used to adhere to, the demons of my past, than I am with anyone else. It is sometimes hard to remember that not everyone had taken the journey I have, studied the evidence I have, and that this kind of a journey terrifies many just to think about. I know, looking back, it terrified me at times, and sometimes still does, necessary though it may be. My own foundational beliefs were laid bare, changed, and frequently replaced as genuine evidence presented itself along this journey, and I do remember the very real difficulties I encountered with incorporating the new data. In truth, I couldn’t be just given the new information all at once either, or else I would have just rejected it all outright too. It had to be done slowly as I was ready for each step.
     But sometimes it is frustrating. Sometimes I think, “If you only knew what I know,” or “if you’d only seen what I’ve seen,” or “if you’d only experienced what I’ve experienced.”