Syncretism

Syncretism
noun
1. the amalgamation or attempted amalgamation of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought.

"My ideas about God weren't all good, all bad, or even all Christian. They were a syncretism of good theology, bad parenting, Lutheran passivity, and American culture." Susan E Isaacs author of Angry Conversations with God

I love when I run across a word that I do not know. I am quick to look it up to gain a grasp of it's meaning.

This word, syncretism, stood out to me, not only because I did not recognize it, but because of the context in which it was used. In her memoir, Isaacs is trying to deal with how her relationship with God went off the rails by going to marriage counseling with God. This to me is a fascinating concept that is completely based on her perception of God and conversations that basically take place with the help of her imagination (and probably with just a smidge of God intervention. I'm only on page 17 so I do not know exactly how this is going to go, but it looks to be an adventure.

Anyway, in the quote, she describes the makeup/syncretism of her belief system. Based on the definition of this word, it might would be easy to become offended by this whole statement, but a person being honest with oneself would realize we each have a syncretism of many different ideas from many different places that make up our image of God; good, bad, and ugly. I know I do. You may say "Well I get all my ideas straight from the Bible!" but in reality you probably read the Bible with your own life filters, word definitions and cultural ideas. I do and at 44 I can tell you that my understanding about things I read in the Bible and understand about God have changed a few times over the years simply because I either matured or gained new knowledge I did not previously possess. That is the glory of growth.

So that is it, I just wanted to share my new word with whoever is reading this, even if it's just me.