Vision TV's Syncretism "Fundamentally Opposed" to Religious Faith

By Hilary White

TORONTO, August 1, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Canada's Vision TV multi-faith religious network says its programming "celebrates diversity" and "promotes understanding" between religions and cultures. Programs include the nationally broadcast Daily Catholic Mass, filmed in St. Michael's Cathedral in Toronto, and programs by Protestant, Muslim, Sikh and Hindu groups for which each organization buys airtime.

But a recent National Post editorial pointed to "the channel's own original programming [that] has been dominated by schismatic Catholics (those who favour female ordination, for instance,) and United Churches who question the divinity of Christ or who favour gay marriage."

Other observers, however, say that the apparent paradox of universal "tolerance" producing hatred of religious belief is in fact a logical function of syncretistic, "liberal" doctrine that all religions are essentially the same.

The key to this paradox is the nature of syncretism, which can be defined as the attempt to reconcile opposed religious beliefs by ignoring or glossing over differences. Syncretism proposes that all religions are essentially the same, an idea condemned in Christian theology as "religious indifferentism."

Fr. Paul McDonald, a Catholic pastor, lecturer and director of vocations for the diocese of St. Catherines Ontario, explained to LifeSiteNews.com, that Vision's syncretistic approach, while proposing the popular idea of "tolerance", leads necessarily to anti-religious bigotry. The syncretistic approach, he said, requires the denial that any one religion is true and the others false.

"It's strict logic," Fr. McDonald said. "If all religious are true, but some religious ideas contradict each other, then the only conclusion would have to be that all religions are false." Fr. McDonald said that Christianity at its core presents one of these either/or questions that cannot be 'reconciled' away to make people feel comfortable. "Either Jesus Christ is God, and the only way to eternal happiness or He's not," he said.

"Essentially, syncretism is a proposal fundamentally opposed to a full commitment to a particular religion." The syncretistic doctrine requires that religious believers who commit fully to a single religion must be denounced as "intolerant." "They call us 'fundamentalists' really only because we believe our religion is objectively true."

Professor Peter Kreeft, the well-known Boston College philosopher and writer on Catholic apologetics told LifeSiteNews.com in an interview that it went even further than that. Vision TV, he explained, cannot be a "multi-faith" broadcaster, but adheres strictly to the religion of secular humanist liberalism, a faith that is itself necessarily bigoted and intolerant.

Kreeft agreed that liberalism and syncretism propose that all religions are essentially false. But, he said, that in the case of traditional Christianity, "some are falser than others."

"If you don't believe in objective truth to begin with," Kreeft said, "if you see religion as a psychological gimmick to make you feel good, then things like objective truth and commandments are necessarily bigoted and intolerant and narrow-minded."

Kreeft said there is only one religion in the world that holds the belief that all religions are equal: "modern liberal secularism." It is a religious creed, he said, an offshoot of Christianity and Judaism, whose central tenet is that any religion that does not accept the doctrine that all religions are equally valid is itself invalid. The logical upshot of that premise, he said, was to make secular humanist liberalism into the most dogmatically bigoted of all religions.

Kreeft suggested that Vision's history of programming reflecting an anti-Catholic and anti-traditional religious position is part of their strict adherence to this religious position. "The only non-bigoted religion in the world, therefore, is 'multifaithism'. All others are intolerable."

See previous reports in this series:

Vision TV's Left-Leaning, Secularist Orientation Overshadows Religious Mandate
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/aug/07080110.html

No Apologies from Vision TV for Years of Anti-Traditional Christian Programming
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jul/07072504.html

Vision TV Blasted for Jihadist Anti-Semitic Programs and "Relativism"
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jul/07072407.html

"All religions can logically be false, but they cannot logically all be true."

My 'belief' system allows that any particulary religion based on a diety is true for the one who practices it. It may be true to them, though not necessarily for me. But who am I to say their's is false?

Being justified by faith could simply mean that your faith is justified even though it's false. In our search for truth, (if it's our heart's desire) we move from a limited understanding to a greater understanding.

The true test of a belief occurs when you receive what you believed in.

But to believe something doesn't necessarily mean that you are working to receive the substance of your belief. If not, you never will know whether or not your belief is true. Let me illustrate with one of my favorite examples:

Let's say you agreed to mow my lawn for $20.00. But something came up and you were not able to mow my lawn that day, and you put it off for a week.

Okay, you don't have the substances of your belief, but you still have the belief. The next week, you mowed my lawn and received the money -- the substance.

Several things happened here.

One, you gained a belief.

Two, you put the belief to a test by performing labor.

Three, you received the substance of your belief and proved by your labor that your belief was true the moment you received the money. Your faith (labor) was justifed.

Note that I have equated faith and labor as synonymous terms.

Also note that I have defined belief as something different than faith.

So, my point being that most of us have some kind of a belief, and some of us are performing the labor required to bring that belief to a conclusion. Performing the labor is the same as demonstrating faith.

I'm sure some of us have changed or modified our beliefs several, if not many times during our lives because we found there was no payoff. But we were justified performing the labor during that period because we were testing a belief and was desirous of actually obtaining the substance of the promise here and now, not after we die.

We found we were spinning our spiritual wheels and not getting anywhere.

So we modified our belief until we found one that worked.

It is said, 'faith without works is dead.' And further, 'I'll show you my faith BY my works.' How? because they are synonymous and interchangeable words.

So I think we have many different beliefs because we have different expectations on what religion is supposed to do for us and will select a belief that has a certain set of promises that will satisfy those expectations.

So you say that all religions cannot logically all be true. That may be, but I think the believer is tasked with discovering what truth can be found in any religion. Hopefully, they will find enough truth to set them free from religion and put them on the path to spirituality.

There exist a good many religions that claim to be ultimate truth. They all pretty much contradict each other. Only one can be true, but all could be false.

Your post is nicely worded, but I think you are missing the point. People who believe that their religion is “true for them” already agree with you. You have no disagreements with them, but can have a nice conversation about where your beliefs are at the moment.

Radical Muslims and the idiots in KS who picket soldiers’ funerals because “God hates fags” are coming from an entirely different angle. They believe they are in possession of the ultimate truth, not “their own personal truth.” AAMOF, they violently reject the very notion of “true for you.”

Historically, and today in much of the world, especially the Muslim world, they’re quite happy to kill you to “prove” their point.

Sounds like they are saying, ‘absolutely there are no absolutes.’

Funny. To me it sounds like they are saying, "different people believe different things, and all are welcome here."

Syncretism is a term for a melding of beliefs, notably things like vodun, which is a syncretistic blend of Catholicism and Yoruba animism. But to apply that term to a multi-faith television network, you would have to assume that said network's all-day offerings reflect a single belief system. It's a TV network, for crying out loud!

Is a town square syncretistic because it allows different viewpoints? Is the yellow pages syncretistic because it allows any congregation of any stripe to place an ad? Is a building syncretistic because it allows Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and maybe even (OH, THE HORROR) Muslims to rent it for services?

VisionTV launched to provide a place for religious programming. And now some folks are howling because they have to share it with other people who believe differently. I can only assume that they'd prefer having no outlet at all to having an outlet that "those other people" use at other times of the day. And that's just sad.

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