Syncretizing Christianity with Confucianism Essay - 2

Syncretizing Christianity with Confucianism - Essay Example Confucius pointed out that heaven and the life after death were very complicated and were beyond human understanding, therefore, each and every individual should focus on doing the right thing while still alive. Brook (13) defines syncretism as the attempt of combining disparate and opposing beliefs together. Christianity is one of the oldest forms of religion with the highest number of believers in the world today. Madsen affirms that Christianity as a religion becomes the hardest to syncretize with Confucianism because Christianity is a religion which has its own doctrines that are all written down and followed by all Christians in the world today. Christians believe in the bible as the only source of the word of God. They believe that the divine God talks to them through the Bible (482). Combining the beliefs of Confucianism with those of Christianity will only serve to cause instability in the church since the base of the belief system will be shaken. Christians believe that there is life after death and therefore God will come back to the end of life on earth and bring justice to the people. Kato points out that according to Christianity good people will go to Heaven while those who were involved in evil deeds will be burnt eternally in hell (10). Syncretism imperils interfaith discourse by trying to detach Christianity from the doctrines and historical core. It will become very difficult in combining the two belief systems because it will be more complicated for Christians to drop their belief system where they strongly believe that God is omnipresent.The doctrines of Christianity does not tally with those of any other religion in the world today, therefore, combining the beliefs of both religions will only serve to bring wrangles and misunderstanding in the world today.