The Reformation: Erasmus, Luther, and Calvin

I’m working my way through a few books this summer in preparation for a reformation course I’m taking. Sadly, growing up Baptist, we didn’t study much church history. So I’m attempting to get my feet wet in the reformation swimming pool. I’ve started with the “Cambridge Companion to Reformation Theology.” It’s a good resource to get a big picture of the major players and major issues of the reformation. One of the first two people I was able to meet on my historic swim, were Erasmus and Luther. Most are probably more aware of Luther, the Protestant Hero than they are of Erasmus, labeled by some as a Heretic.

As I’ve been reading Erasmus, I came across some interesting quotes that I thought were interesting in our current environment. Erasmus is a interesting fellow, highly involved in the debates with Luther. Interestingly, one of the reasons Luther was upset with Erasmus was for “wanting to compare everything and affirm nothing.” I thought this phrase was interesting in light of some of the situations in our postmodern culture. While I’m sure many in certain camps, could use a humble orthodoxy, I see the frustrations of Luther in many I meet. While it is important to be gracious and humble, maybe we can take this too far? It seemed for Luther that Erasmus had arrived at this point. For Luther there were foundational aspects to affirm, it is the same for us today.

Not to bash on Erasmus too much, I did find one of his phrases interesting as well. Erasmus was “convinced that theology was a unity…the study of the bible, systematic theology, and devotional reading had become separate from one another and that in itself was wrong.” I find this everywhere today from Pop-Christian culture to even some fellow seminarians. We separate good research from the study of the Bible.  As if good research and information people need to live in the way of Jesus are on opposite ends of the spectrum. As a former pastor, one who attends seminary with future pastors, and as one who is looking to teach in Higher Ed, I’m continually aware of the detachment of the Church from Academia.

Why does what we do in the classroom, or what takes place in a library, become separated from what takes place in a pastoral study or a sunday morning sermon? We’ve approached the bible as if it were a great book, but just lacking in the practical department. So we come to the text in order to find something in it to aid us in our life. Rather than being caught up in the extravagant story the Bible is telling. In our attempts to be “practical” we have left ourselves with but a mere shadow of the true reality of the grand narrative of scripture. It’s time we stop treating the bible as if it were some handicapped piece of literature and in need of our help. It’s time approach the Bible for what it is, the powerful story in which we are caught up and changed through the power of the Spirit.

Nowhere is this attempt more clearly seen than in our sermons with some “practical points” that could be connected to anyone from Oprah to Deepak Chopra. Our attempt to be practical is a desire to to find some way to work the Bible into our daily lives. I think this starts off the wrong assumption. It starts with our lives and wants to add in the Bible. What if we realized the Story God is telling and tried to work our lives into that? I think in our attempts to be practical we have missed the Bible’s emphasis, which is not practicality, its transformational. The Bible does not intend to be practical, it intends to be transformational. It doesn’t intend to give you three points to be a better person, it intends to give you a life altering, paradigm shifting story, one that is truely transformational. One with which we can declare “we are a NEW creation, the OLD has gone, the NEW has come. It is transformational in that it unites with the Triune God who is in the process of setting the world to right THROUGH  a person Jesus Christ, and THROUGH people, you and me, so that we can say with him “Behold I am making ALL things PRACTICAL…no no no, I am making ALL things NEW!

Thanks Erasmus!

 

How To Be Evangelical Without Being Conservative: Part 5

ON BELONGING, BELIEVING, AND BECOMING

Another contemporary discussion that Olson address is is the process of church interaction.

The debate centers on the proper ordering of three key words; believe, belong, and become. There are proponents for each of the three orderings of the words, and Olson advocates for the belong, believe, and become ordering. It is indeed a tough line to draw between accepting people as they are and challenging conformity into the image of Christ. As Olson points out “we are a group of people little different in our lifestyle from the world around us.”

Certainly a double standard has operated within the church for those outside the walls and for those inside the walls. Typically this is seen by sweeping the “sins of the congregation” underneath the rug, and a form of exploiting the sins of those outside the community.

The cardinal of all sins within all evangelical circles is sexual sin. Usually, most of the attention both inside and outside of the church is directed towards these issues. Other sins such as lying, bitterness, hatred, and injustice take a backseat to these. Olson argues that we must “blur the boundaries between the sinners in the church and the sinners outside the church.” and goes on to say “There is no line between “them” and “us” when it comes to being sinners.”

Olson’s thesis in this chapter is quite convincing and has support, what however fails to persuade, is his failure to distinguish between sinners who have repented and those who have not. In reference to us all being sinners, that it true, however it is also true that not all sinners are alike in their response to sin. It would have been nice to see Olson comment on this aspect of sinners and repentance. In all other regards, Olson is to be commended for highlighting the church’s tendency to focus on the “hot button issues” and not speaking out against all sin.

CONCLUSION

Overall Olson issues a challenging call to all of those who would call themselves evangelical. He confronts those who have turned evangelicalism into a new form of fundamentalism and issues a call to return for those who have ridded themselves of the term. Olson in his book argues for a return to the third way that evangelicalism has historically been, the middle ground between fundamentalism and liberalism. Olson’s call to return to the historic roots of evangelicalism needs to be heeded in order to be truly evangelical.

The solution for Olson is that “progressive evangelicals move beyond conservatism into what I call “postconservative evangelicalism.”

While not all of Olson’s arguments are persuasive as others, he does put forth a coherent argument on several key issues. We would do well to listen with open ears and open hearts to the concerns, critiques, and the credibility that Olson’s argument brings.

 

How To Be Evangelical without Being Conservative: Part 3

ON TRANSFORMING CULTURE

No other area of Christian life and study has seen such polarization as the issue of Church and Culture. Pendulum swings abound within this field, from groups who so closely identify with the culture that they lack any clear Christian distinctions. Likewise, some groups have so withdrawn from culture that they are no longer that “city on the hill” they are commanded to be. From the Religious Right to the anabaptists different groups have tried to walk the thin line of engagement with culture.  From the minds of Richard Mouw to H. Richard Neibuhr each generation has attempted to find a balance of cultural engagement. Where is a middle ground to be found?

Olson argues that “conservative Christians are perceived as people who want to criminalize behavior inconsistent with the Bible or with Christian values and principles.”

This has also recently been seen in the book “UnChristian” which also states that the culture around Christianity perceives them to be anti-gay.

As Olson points out most conservative Christians “believe it is the Christian’s duty to change the world using power when persuasion fails.”

Likewise, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” is for them a mandate to go into the political realm and triumphalistically take it over and dominate it for Christ and his kingdom.”

In the history of cultural engagement there have been two primary approaches to culture, some have adopted a  “Christ against culture” model while other have adopted a “Christ transforming culture” model. One can look back across the landscape of evangelicalism and see where each paradigm was operating. Olson strives to communicate that to be truly evangelical one has to abandon the current paradigms for cultural interaction and reform Evangelicalism. Olson’s solution is that “Before trying to change society, evangelicals must reform themselves and their congregations and institutions away from individualism, consumerism, and therapeutic Christianity (“your best life now”).”

Too often, conservative evangelicals have adopted principles and practices from a culture it is trying to engage, for the altruistic goal of transforming culture.

One needs to be quickly reminded, that the the modes of operation and the practices of the kingdom of God are radically different than the patterns of the world. The church cannot continue to adopt the practices of a fallen world and attempt to pursue, follow, or accomplish the plans of God’s kingdom. The patterns are not parallel, they head in two completely different directions, to entirely different goals.

 

How to Be Evangelical without Being Conservative: Part 2

ON BIBLICAL LITERALISM

Another characterization of evangelicals is that they all take the bible literally. Biblical literalism has been and continues to go alongside a high view of scripture. For if we believe in the authority of scriptures, an interpretation is necessary to understand this scripture.  Thus in order to be faithful to the scriptures for life and practice, many evangelicals insist on a literal hermeneutic. Olson historically tracks biblical literalism and notices a changing of terminology over the past “whereas literal interpretation of the bible was once tied especially with fundamentalism (maximum religious conservatism), it is now associated with conservative evangelicals in general because the nomenclature has changed.”

Issues such as the creation account in the first two chapters of Genesis have received such attention. Scholars are divided, with some taking the account literally, while others stress the nature of the genre, and others see the passage as poetry. However, with proponents such as Ken Ham receiving somewhat national attention, along with the current debate of teaching creationism in public schools, the image of evangelicals as biblical literalists has been engrained into the minds of the media and adopted as synonyms.

The obvious problem with such biblical literalism is that no one practices what they preach. Everyone from conservative, progressive, to liberal, all pick and choose what biblical texts to take literally and which texts to spiritualize. Usually this is defined by the current social-cultural milieu of the day rather than on any clear set of methodological principles. This idea of literalism has struck a contemporary note in two recent publications. One such note is the recent book by A.J. Jacobs, where “In the Year of Living Biblically” he attempts to take every aspect of the biblical text literally for one year.

A non-religious Jew is even struck by the way that many Christians pick and choose the texts they want to apply. More recently, Scot McKnight has tackled the issue of biblical interpretation in his book entitled “The Blue Parakeet”.

Each author, along with Olson, have attempted to bring awareness to the picking and choosing of each group and to show that biblical literalism is not the answer.

For Olsen, the problem is that “the term biblical literalism is a misleading concept; nobody believes every sentence of the Bible literally.”

While agreement can be found Olson’s statement that “truth can be conveyed nonlitearlly”

Other disagreements arise with some of Olson’s methadology. For instance, Olson criticizes Rudolph Bultmann and Paul Tillich for arguing that the historical resurrection was not as factually important as the importance of the effect of faith it had in the life of the disciples.

He then goes on to address the book of Jonah, which itself has been scrutinized for its historicity. Olson then makes the contradictory statement of “If Jonah spurs one to affection and action, it is being taken seriously whether or not a huge fish actually swallowed a human being.”

In essence, the historicity of the account is not as important as the effect it has in the life of the believer. One is hard pressed to find a difference between the statement of Olson and that of Bultmann. If one can apply the same standard to Jonah, why not to the resurrection account?

Agreement can be found among the importance of stories within the Old and New Testaments. One could honestly argue that the story of Abraham is more fundamental than Jonah. Nonetheless, methods and practices should have continuity to insure integrity and validity in interpretation. While it is impossible to take every sentence of the bible literally, and in some cases this would be the exactly the wrong approach, we should exercise caution so that the literal baby will not be thrown out with the metaphorical bath water.

 

How to be Evangelical without being Conservative: Part 1

I’m currently in a History of Evangelicalism class taught by none other than Stan Gundry, Academic Vice President of Zondervan. One of the requirements for the class is a book review of a current evangelical topic. My first selection was Roger Olson’s  “How to Be Evangelical without being Conservative.” The title of the book really intrigued me, as did the contents as I started reading. Beginning today, I will be posting my review section by section.

In Roger Olson’s book “How to Be Evangelical without being Conservative” he addresses the current assumption of many mainline evangelicals and popular media that presumptuously link the titles of evangelical with conservative.  In Olson’s distinctions between the two terms, one should not associate conservative with evangelical, as there may be areas, that to truly be evangelical one cannot be conservative. In fact Olson challenges the major assumption that “Most people assume that to be evangelical is to be conservative socially, politically, and theologically.”

Olson bolsters this claim with his definition of evangelical. For Olson, a broad description of the posture of evangelicalism means “being radically open to the gospel in all of its implications, including our comfort zones and vested interest in upholding the status quo and reiterating the past…that’s not conservative or liberal; its radical, extreme, and progressive.”

MORALITY

One of the first issues Olson confronts is morality. In his chapter entitled “Building Character without Moralism” Olson puts forth the primary thesis that evangelicals in the historic definition of the word are “too rigid in their morality and too moralistic toward outsiders (that is sinful unbelievers).

Morality in this chapter is defined as “setting up a code of conduct that derives largely from tradition and seeks to enforce it on people with harsh sanctions for this who fall short of perfection.”

Although recent history has seen the rise of the Moral Majority and the  Religious Right as beacons of this mindset, Olson argues that this is far from being biblical and even farther from being truly evangelical. One truly is bewildered by the past and current attempts to foist Judeo-Christian morality onto a Protestant defined depraved humanity.  How one holds these two positions together presses the the realms of logic. The charge of inconsistency seems to be highly relevant at this point.

Olson argues biblically, that neither Jesus nor Paul, and for that matter the early church, tried to help the surrounding culture pull themselves up by their moral boot straps. In fact Paul’s language at the end of First Corinthians five seems to indicate that Christians have no place in judging the outside world.

Olson holds that the main thrust of the Bible’s moral code is a call for character reformation of God’s covenant people. Olson goes onto critique the movements such as the religious right when he says “nowhere do I see Jesus Christ or any apostle giving Christians a mandate to change the word by using political power”

In conclusion, Olson argues that to be truly evangelical, one must give up the temptation to be moralistic, and the attempts to make a pagan culture moral. Rather the true evangelicals, as biblicists, should be concerned with the inward and focus on transformation of character. Because moral conservatism is concerned with making people behave by the use of rules and shame. Evangelical morality is about “fostering an environment where God’s spirit can inculcate the desire to please God through a life of obedience.”

 

Liberia Update

Well I have some bad news about my trip to Liberia. I experienced a three hour delay out of Cincinatti that caused me to miss my two connecting flights to Liberia. Since there are only a few flights per week into Monrovia, I was not able to get on a flight in time to be there for my break.

I could have gotten to Brussels, Belgium, but there were no flights from Brussels to Liberia till too late in the week. So as I was in O’Hare i decided that it would be better to be stuck in Chicago then in a foreign country. There were a few options to travel through other African countries such as Nigeria or Casablanca, I was unsure if I would be let it do to travel restrictions such as Visas and Shots, as I was only cleared for Liberia. I also preferred not to be stuck in a airport in Africa. So after a few hours process, the decision had to be made to cancel the trip. My college Dr. Osborn, was able to make all the flights and is currently in Liberia. I was able to email him the work I did and the class will continue on.

Some who supported me may be wondering about some financial issues. I’m pretty certain that there will be another trip over summer break or next fall. I will most likely keep the money for those trips. In the event that I do not get to go on a trip, I will be sending back all the money as soon as possible. Luckily, American Airlines will reimburse me for the international portions of the trip, as I was delayed by no fault of my own. So that’s the deal on the financial issues. I will be in contact with those who supported me as soon as possible, with details on where I’ll hopefully be going next.

I’m a mix of emotions right now, I’m slightly depressed, saddened, confused, and kinda in a daze. Although I can go on another trip, I thought that THIS would be that trip. I had prepared for this trip emotionally, physically, and spiritually, and the let down was pretty rough. It was a pretty loud and clear signal that the door was closing on Liberia. I’m currently trying to deal with the reality that I will not be in Liberia this week. In some ways, the story of Paul in Acts 16 seems appropriate. For in Acts 16:6-8 we read ” 6 Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. 7 When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. 8 So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas.”

Now obviously there are some major differences, but in some ways I see some connections and that gives me hope. If Liberia was my “Bithynia”, I wonder what will be my “Troas?” In some ways, I really feel that I was prevented from going. I also wonder if Paul felt the same confusion?

Well I spent the night in Chicago last night (thank you priceline) and am waiting for a 520pm train back to Grand Rapids through AmTrack.

 

Missions in the Way of Jesus- Conclusion

A proper understanding of missions as central to the local church should show all members that missions is not to be left up to missionaries but is a responsibility for every member in the body of Christ. While giving is essential for missions to take place it cannot be the only avenues by which members of the church work out the great commission.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, global missions must embrace a mission that is rooted in the local church, discipleship, justice, and post-colonialism. Times have changed from the early missionary work that embarked from Europe and America. The landscape of missions has changed and so must its practices and procedures to remain faithful to the gospel and to change the world. While the tension between gospel and culture is a timeless one, it is a tension God has given us to articulate His message. The church must find ways to change in order to reach new and changing cultures with the hope and redemption of the gospel. The church will endure until Christ returns and it will not fail, however it is up to the church to steward the gifts God has given it in every culture and place. By embracing this new framework missions will be able to enter into the post-modern and post-colonial world with a new sense of identity and place amidst competing cultures, nations, and religions. The gospel of Jesus Christ will find its roots in new soil, ready to grow and bloom into the beautiful reality of Gods’ kingdom in a new time and place.

 

Missions in the Way of Jesus- Part 5

MISSIONS ROOTED IN POST- COLONIALISM
Since the modern era, the church has taken the reverse stance of the early church. Missions is seen in modern times as a movement from the civilized to the uncivilized, from the “haves to the have nots,” from the economically stable to the unstable. The enterprise of western world missions has clearly taken on an imperialistic framework for operations. Christianity itself becomes the problem as “so often Christian empires have taken over the symbol of the kingdom of God to justify the same kind of rule as that of the empires it was forged to oppose.”
It is precisely this attitude of colonialism that western missions must oppose and reject while promoting a post-colonial attitude towards other nations and people groups.

The attitude and position of colonialism is to the detriment and consequence of western missions and has hindered the gospel message. Most missions have adopted a cultural imperialistic mindset of colonialism, where the “Colonizing nations generally dominate the resources, labor, and markets of the colonial territory, and may also impose socio-cultural, religious and linguistic structures on the indigenous population”
Global missions must find a way to rid itself of a colonialist type mindset. They must rid the attitudes and assumptions of superiority in both morals and values and seek to learn from those abroad nationally. The tables must be turned on ideas such as one-way education, where the colonizing nation seeks to instruct or “indoctrinate” another less powerful country. Both countries must seek to learn from one another in a way that brings about change both nations.

Most people from outside the west are rejecting this trend of cultural imperialism. This is played out as Americans coming to bring their American culture, ideas, and even their religion in an attempt to colonize the other nations. America has exported in a sense the good, the bad, and the downright ugly of our culture.

Most nations are rejecting the ideas and culture of America and in turn rejecting their Christian faith as well.

The role of America in missions has drastically changed since it first began. While America was once seen as the dominant powerhouse of civilization, to which all nations wanted to become, their success story has been shattered in the area of world affairs. Instances such as Rwanda and Somalia, and not least in the Middle East to name a few have changed the world’s perceptions of America. According to a BBC pole conducted in 2007, the survey showed that “anti-Americanism is on the rise, and the more the US flexes its hard power – the more it deploys troops abroad or talks tough diplomatically – the more it seems to weaken its ability to influence the world.”
The United States’ attitude of only caring for itself and its own interests has radically changed how the world views the States.

One way this will be seen is by letting other voices come to the table of theological and ecclesiological discussions. Western thought and theology has dominated the discussion of what the church is and what they should believe. It’s not that this was a wrong approach to take, it was at least misguided and in the end incomplete. It was never intended in the mind of God that there would be one; single voice box to speak on His behalf, and it certainly wasn’t his intention that a single voice box would silence all other voices. God intended that all of His creation would declare His mission throughout the world. A community of voices is needed to accurately articulate the message of God.
The western portrait of God and theology is good, but it is incomplete. By its very nature the exclusion of other voices means that the picture is incomplete. Western church leaders and missionaries need to learn from their brothers and sisters in the Eastern Orthodox, South American, African, and the Far East traditions in order to paint a complete picture of God. If God is God of the entire world, then voices from across the globe have a vital and necessary voice to be heard. The notion of theological superiority that is prevalent throughout the West must be dismissed and an attitude of humble orthodoxy must be accepted.

 

Missions in the Way of Jesus: Part 3

MISSIONS ROOTED IN THE LOCAL CHURCH
The church’s mission is to carry forth the missio dei. They are commissioned by the authority of Jesus to declare to all creation that Jesus is Lord and the kingdom is coming, to repent from all other ways of living, and enter into God’s kingdom style living now. This is the message that the church is to spread to all of creation.

The mission of the church can also be summed up as Leslie Newbigin stated in “The Open Secret” as proclamation, presence, and prevenience. As stated previously, the church’s mission involves proclamation that God’s kingship is reigning over all humanity history and the entire world. “Mission is concerned with nothing less than the completion of all that God has begun to do in the creation of the world and of humankind.” The proclamation of God’s kingdom is for the whole world. While the proclamation is global in scope, Christians find themselves in specific places at specific times in history. This is where the global missions find its presence. While God is Lord over all creation, He sent His son to the world, to be confined by time, the first century, and by place, the land of Palestine. While God’s mission and the church’s mission is universal, for all people in all places. The church must enact its mission in the time and place it finds itself in. A church must be bound to its culture in both time and place.

Mission agencies from the west need to be dedicated to training national leaders for ministry in their own countries. This was the model of Paul, himself a missionary, who having stayed a few months in a city, built up the church’s own leadership and then left. This model will be most effective for the western world in the land of missions. It is no secret that the West has a wealth of resources in the areas of finances and education. David Wells aptly states, “If the incarnation was about parting with riches and power in the cause of self-giving love, we surely have a model for thinking about how Western Christians …need to be relating to the majority of Christians, who now live outside the West.”  These resources education and finances must enable and equip leaders from their respective countries to be trained so they can effectively minister in their countries. Today the most effective missions might come from people outside the west. Given the political and social landscape of the world and their attitudes towards Americans, it may be wise to focus energies and efforts on training national leaders who will be able to minister in their culture without the baggage of being an American.

In what ways, positively and negatively, have American shaped missions?

 

New Testament Introduction Series: Colossians – Part 3

THE PROBLEM AT COLOSSAE
The issue of the problem facing the Colossians is just as debated over as the authorship. It is of typical Pauline nature to respond to problems that arise within the early church. Letters such as Galatians and the epistles to the Corinthians showcase Paul’s response to critical issues in the life of the church. Often, Paul is correcting a distorted view or challenging the communities to live in light of the resurrected Lord. Thus, when we come to the book of Colossians many seek to understand the nature of the issue that prompted the response by Paul.

False teaching or a deceptive philosophy (vs. 8), may serve as a better indicator of the problem in Colossae. O’Brian is cautious, and correctly so, to define the problem at Colossae as heresy. Seeing as Paul himself never uses those exact words, it seems as if it might only have been in development and Paul issues his warnings as a precaution. Rather than a full-blown heresy, we can put together the problems at Colossae by Paul’s response in 2:8-23.  Currently, there are three main positions on the source of false teaching at Colossae.  Jewish mysticism, Judaism, and religio-syncretism have all been provided as valid options for the false teaching.

Jewish Mysticism
Jewish Mysticism is thought to describe some of the unique features that are highlighted in 2:8-23. Many who see the Jewish roots, argue that it is a specific strand of Judaism and not Judaism in general. Quite possibly this could have been the Essene group who typically “imply a degree of asceticism not usually associated with Jewish tradition.” As Paul describes the “worship of angels” in verse 18 this would not have been a predominately Jewish feature.   Some commentators see a special emphasis on the role of angels in creation and the giving of the law. This is supported by some intertestamental literature, mainly Philo who references the Jewish worship of angels. The reference of Philo could serve to highlight the interesting argument of Paul in verse 18 on the worship of angels. O’Brien sees the recent scholarly work on Jewish-Christian mysticism as shedding much needed light on the warnings of Paul in 2:8-23.

Judaism
Others however see the problem at Colossae as strictly Judaism. Both Dunn and Wright serve as the main proponents of this view.  Dunn and Wright argue that Paul is describing a problem with Judaism at Colossians. Although many of the features could fit into any religious system, there are some, specifically the reference to circumcision (vs. 11) that highlights the specific Jewish nature of the problem. The issue of circumcision is the most distinctively Jewish feature of the Colossian philosophy.  Any one present during the first century would have regarded the act of circumcision with no other group but the Jews. Other issues such as baptism (vs. 12), and Sabbath (vs. 16), and food purity rules (vs. 16), are difficult to understand outside of a Jewish framework and further strengthen the argument of the nature of a Jewish problem at Colossae.  Although some debate the presence of false teachers at Colossae, it seems to have had roots within the Jewish synagogue system in the region.

One does wonder at the response of Paul to the problem at Colossae. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul resounds with one of his fiercest and most direct challenges to the problem makers, where he says that the Galatians have been “bewitched” (Gal. 1:7) and condemns his opponents to Hell (Gal. 1:8). Such a response of Paul is absent in the letter to the Colossians. Assuming Pauline authorship of the book, why did Paul not respond in the same way? One can only assume that the problem, however similar, did not pose the same threat as the problem in Galatia. Judging from Paul’s response, this problem at Colossae did not seek to undermine or further convert the Colossians, rather it seeks to mature the believers at Colossae through another agency, Judaism, apart from Christ.

Religious Syncretism
Some see the problem at Colossae as a syncretism between Judaism, Christianity, and other first century Roman religions. The two most influential supporters of this view have been Eduard Lohse, and most recently Doug Moo. Lohse argues in his commentary on Colossians that the aspects of Paul’s warnings in 2:8-23 indicate a varied adoption of religious practices throughout the region. Lohse bases his understanding on the word “philosophy” which would be the broadest term to “describe all sorts of groups, tendencies and points of view and thus had become a very broad term.”
In dealing with the inherent Jewish elements in Paul’s warning, specifically circumcision, Lohse notes that nowhere in the New Testament are circumcision and baptism compared with one another.

Concluding that Paul borrowed the term from the slogans of the group, he argues that circumcision refers broadly to the initiatory rites of mystery cults. While there were certainly initiatory rites associated with many cults, it is hard pressed to see why Paul would choose such a theologically loaded Jewish word to speak of simple initiation into a group. Furthermore nowhere in antiquity is circumcision used with reference to a syncretistic religion and circumcision in the first century was classically identified with Judaism. It is more likely that circumcision stands for a specifically Jewish identity marker and nothing more.

Moo likewise argues from a socio-local point. While noting that there was a rather large minority of Jewish people in the area, He argues that they were just as susceptible to syncretism based on their location in the Roman Empire. Moo argues that Colossae was a “cosmopolitan city exposed to a wide variety of religions and philosophies, were likely quite susceptible to these kinds of mixtures.”  Amongst the vast cults and emperor worship, each religious group found its place in the Roman Pantheon of religions. Some even see the rhetoric of Paul as confronting the imperial cult present at that time, as his readers would have instantly recognized the imperial themes.  Almost every religion was acceptable in the Roman Empire, as long as that religion was accepting of every other religion. Naturally with many religious groups syncretization was bound to occur.  Moo’s point is largely correct in regards to its historical nature.

While syncretism could be a daily temptation on the part of the believers at Colossae, it seems to lose momentum when compared with Paul’s response. Galatians clearly indicates how Paul deals with any form of syncretism and the gospel, whether that is Jewish or any other first century religion. Paul appears persistently antagonistic to syncretize anything with faith and the gospel. Hence we find the biting and abrupt response to the church at Galatia. However, to the church in Colossae, his response is calm and well-mannered. Either Paul in his old age had broadened his stance on these issues, or the issue that presented itself to the Colossians was not a threat to the message of the gospel that Epaphras had delivered to them. Even contemporary sources note that the Jewish worship of a monotheistic God and the emphasis on their special election was offensive to their neighbors which kept the number of proselytes low. While syncretism was a viable option, it does not seem to be the basis of Paul’s warning and argument found in Colossians.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the issues that confront the reader of this book are broad and deep. It seems at every turn the reader is confronted with a new obstacle from which their decision sets them on a new course in the letter. Issues such as authorship, the problem of Colossae, and the date and writing of the letter, force the reader to move between the micro and macro contexts of the letter. The reader is forced to keep the overall message of the book in tension with the chapters they encounter. These issues are not easy, but careful and dedicated study yields great results for the reader who encounters this book.