Hybrid Religion

The fellow in the song “I Got It One Piece at a Time” took car parts from different years and built himself a custom-made automobile. The mismatched parts looked so strange that he called it his “Psycho Billy Cadillac.”

The same thing is happening in religion. The doctrinal gene pool is so mixed that there are few “pure" members of any belief system today. They take beliefs from other groups and combine them with their base set of ideas. It doesn't matter if the ideas match. They just want to tailor-make their religion.

This is not new. In the Old Testament, the Jews often tried to blend the law of Moses with pagan rituals. They didn't care that the two systems were incompatible. They just wanted to hold hands with God and the world at the same time.

Christians in the New Testament tried to create hybrid churches. Some like the Galatians attempted to combine the law of Moses with the gospel. Others like the Corinthians blended Greek philosophy with the doctrine of Christ which led some of them to deny the resurrection of the dead.

The church at Colosse faced the threat of a strange combination of all these elements. Paul warned, “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ” (Col. 2:8). He then gave details about this movement. They taught Christians to observe the law of Moses, to worship angels, and to live a life of extreme self-denial or asceticism (Col. 2:16-23).

Today people mix and match religious beliefs like menus in a restaurant that tell you to create your own entrée. The walls of denominations are crumbling and "non-denominational" churches which are actually a melting pot of denominational ideas are springing up everywhere.

This trend is affecting churches of Christ. I know of more than one non-institutional congregation which has adopted Calvinism. A young woman who grew up attending a congregation in the heart of the Bible Belt told me that the idea of reincarnation was cool. A surprising number of Christians are fascinated with Greek Orthodox teaching. And some of our members repeat Pentecostal/charismatic sayings apparently without even realizing it. The internet undoubtedly has accelerated this trend.

What are we to do? Hold to the Word of God and keep teaching it. Test what you hear or read in light of the Bible (I Thess. 5:21; Acts 17:11). Warn others that they “teach no other doctrine” (I Tim. 1:3).

In a day of hybrid cars, GMOs and mixed metals, we need to make sure that our hearts, lives and the doctrine we believe is pure.

Kerry

West End church of Christ • May 18, 2025