Syncretism is Nothing New

Philip Jenkins, Religion Scholar and Episcopalian writes When Jesus Met Buddha.

“Yet concerns about syncretism did not bother these early Asian Christians, who called themselves Nasraye, Nazarenes, like Jesus’s earliest followers. They were comfortable associating themselves with the other great monastic and mystical religion of the time, and moreover, they believed that both lotus and cross carried similar messages about the quest for light and salvation. If these Nazarenes could find meaning in the lotus-cross, then why can’t modern Catholics, or other inheritors of the faith Jesus inspired?”