Polychrist Syncretism

The founders of our nation were not perfect, but they were very intelligent men that understood human nature, and history. They had the benefit of hind sight, they were able to see the noble attributes of the civilizations of the past, and also the failures. They chose to pattern their new government system after the noblest, and most successful system that they could find throughout history, the one that had been perfectly tailored for liberty and freedom, and their choice was the old Republic of Rome, before it became an empire. 

Rome did not start out as a republic, but rather a monarchy. It was a monarchy for 250 years, and then a republic for about 500 years, and then a empire for the remaining 450 years until it was dismembered by turmoil.

It was the republic system that made Rome extremely strong, but the conversion to an empire started its slow decline, and the founders of our nation considered this when they wrote the fail-safes into the foundation so that it would be impossible for a popular political figure to acquire that much power in a constitutional atmosphere. 

Even in Rome's beginning as a monarchy it was strong, and it grew, but when it became a republic it was practicing representative government, and syncretism in its religious system which made it extremely cohesive,and alluring, which created a very conducive environment for solid growth. 

But what is syncretism? Why is it so important for creating a stable National System? 

Liberty

liberty  n, pl -ties 

1. the power of choosing, thinking, and acting for oneself; freedom from control or restriction.

In themselves Liberty, and Freedom are very good, they are highly prized, and exalted by most cultures, especially by ours.  Liberty is not achieved easily, and is difficult to hold onto, because there are many who would try to take it away.  There are those who think that everyone has to be controlled, and that they themselves have been "chosen" to control everyone, and we, as a people have always been able to keep those who would dominate us in check.  In fact our nation's system has "built-in" safeties to ward against such individuals because the founders knew human nature very well, and provided for it in the foundation.

Nevertheless Freedom and Liberty can be very dangerous to the person that is not responsible with such power, in the sense that they become like the proverbial "man that had too much rope". Jefferson once said "A Republic cannot survive unless God is the King",  an amazingly true statement, and all of the founders understood that Liberty is an extremely powerful thing, and it must be maintained with temperance, and self control based on godly principles.  Each person controlling themselves with principles that promote, and foster a healthy environment where Justice, and Truth can thrive.

Knowing this information one might ask, "Is there anything more important than Liberty?"

Revival in the Millennial Generation

Millennials, who are they?  Well Millennials is a term used for the generation of kids in America born around 1980 up to the mid 90's and have come to adulthood near the turn of the century.  They got their name from a noticeable event that happened in their lives in history.  My generation, the Baby Boomers, were those people born after WW2 when the troops came home, the economy boomed and everybody started having kids. 

What impact do the Millennials have in my life? They are a generation of kids that my heart breaks for.  The first time they came to my attention, several years ago, when I saw a slide show in the church we used to attend, that they were growing up and leaving the churches in America in large numbers.  They were saying that only 4% of them were professing Christianity.  This statistic saddened my heart and I began to read about the Millenial generation in national polls and observing them through facebook and all around me.  Millennials are the children of divorce.  In 1970 the no fault divorce laws came to all the states in the US and the divorce rate zoomed to 50%.  The laws before this time required a much longer waiting time for divorces to be finalized and some criteria to happen before they were granted.  These laws were put into place to stop rash behavior and reckless divorce.  If the Millenial kids themselves were not troubled with divorce in their family, they were friends with or in relationships with people who were.  This huge influx of kids from divorce made a big impact on our society and our country.  Much darker than what  a lot of people realized when these kids were little.  

Now that they are adults they are resonating the things that happened to them when they were young. 

American Polytheism

When we explore the religious practices of the ancient Greco-Roman world we see that they did not practice different religions, but they practiced many different versions of the same religion. Basically honoring various gods with temples, rites, and various rituals, and tributes, which is referred to as polytheism.  They had many gods and many temples.  Each god had unique attributes and had control over certain aspects of life, and the world.  Each one would be sought at different times depending on the circumstances of the individual seeking help from the gods, or wanting to honor, or worship a god for a specific perceived blessing that was received.

It has been recorded in the history books that Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in the fourth century AD.  This is a misrepresentation of what actually took place and what the Emperor was endeavoring to accomplish.  He did not convert to Christianity.  What he actually did was he converted Christianity, and adopted the Christian God to the religion of the Empire.

He did not remove all the other gods from the Roman religious repertoire, he merely added another god to the list of very important gods in the Roman religious experience. We see many pagan aspects of this fact when we examine the main religion that eventually emerged from Constantine's corruption of the truth.  The Roman Catholic Church developed as a result of many pagan practices mixed into the corrupt "Christian" framework that Constantine fabricated. It was some years after Constantine that the pure pagan polytheistic practices were removed comletely, and the Roman Catholic Church became the dominant religious influence in Europe.

The Milk of the Word

"For we are not like many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God.  2 Corinthians 2:17

For six thousand years now mankind has been creating all sorts of religions, and gods, and objects of worship.  Worshiping the sun, moon, and stars, things on the earth, and things that they have made with their hands.  Men, from the beginning, have turned away from the truth, and they have fabricated many religious "systems", and ways of worshiping their gods. Like at the Tower of Babel, they built a high tower to reach to the heavens, so that they could touch the heavens, become great, and make a name for themselves.  This was the beginning of the great false religious system of the world.  It was halted and postponed by God, when He confused their language and separated them, dispersed them, and they became the nations, migrating to every continent.

Religion, in the great empires of the world, has always been used to appease and control the masses, giving the people what they need to satisfy their hunger for spirituality, the hunger which we all have, because we were created by God.  Only the fool does not recognize this. This recognition by the peoples of the world, that there is a God,  creates a need for religion to satisfy the obvious need for spirituality.  Therefore the whole world has become full of religions, all false, except for one.

Revival - Leaving the Roman World Behind

Genesis 10:32 These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, by their nations; and out of these the nations were separated on the earth after the flood.

It is fascinating to consider the things that happened to mankind after the great flood which took place approx. 2350 BC. About one hundred years after the flood, God confused the language of all the people and the tower of Babel was abandoned. The peoples being separated by all the different languages began to migrate to all the corners of the Earth. We have no idea exactly how many people were alive at that time. Evidently they migrated in every direction. The people that went to the north and west became the Indo-European peoples from which came the Mycenae peoples and they eventually became the Greeks. Also there were the various peoples that populated the coast lands all throughout Southern Europe. Some of these were the Latin speaking peoples that settled on one of the hills of the future city of Rome, on the Palatine hill, about the tenth century BC. From history we can see that they were a very organized and resourceful people that became a powerful kingdom at first, and then became a republic around 500 BC. Ancient Roman society has contributed greatly to government, law, politics, engineering, art, literature, architecture, technology, warfare, religion, language, society and more in the Western world. It is the religious aspect of the ancient Roman world that I feel is necessary to explore in this paper.