Well - I know I’ve descended into the OST hall of infamy when I’m being compared to George Bush.

What a lot of comments - from Jacob, jhimm and John. I’ll try to package the replies all into one comment.

First - syncretism. John - you employ the term much more broadly than I had intended, or than I believe is its normal meaning. It normally refers to attempts to harmonise different religious beliefs and religious systems - on the assumption that they will all be found to have one common ground and meaning, if it could be found. It does not mean the same as ‘synthesize’ - which is the word that comes to mind in the illustrations you have used.

As far as I know, syncretism has nothing to do with George Bush’s Iraq policy. I’m simply pointing out something that some find distasteful - that Judaeo-Christianity denies the possibility of religious syncretism, and asserts its uniqueness as a metanarrative. I notice that nobody disagreed with the examples I picked out of Old and New Testament.

No, I’m not caricaturing postmodernism, and I agree with your description of the strengths of some postmodern discourse: “postmodern critiques of objectivity are valuable in uncovering hidden subjectivities — subjectivities that are often motivated by insularity, the will to power and the suppression of dissent”. That’s very well put.

I have never entered into a discussion about what is ‘right’ or ‘not right’ Christianity. That’s just a rather lazy way of dismissing critical discussion. I am simply pointing out that there is something self-contradictory about taking such clearly particularist belief-sytems as Judaism or Christianity, and trying to make them into something else. Half of the Old Testament is about Israel being rebuked for adopting the practices and beliefs of other religions! Half of the New Testament is about exhortations to Christians not to compromise with Judaism on the one hand, and Emperor worship on the other.

“Why must the conservatives always end their diatribes by invoking the blood of the martyrs?”

I’ve no idea - was this meant to be a comment on me or anything I said?

Christians went to their deaths in the Roman Empire because they abjured syncretism - they felt it was incompatible to make religious offerings to Caesar as Lord and at the same time be loyal to Jesus as Lord. Conservatives, diatribes and invocations don’t come into it.

In the gloomy and confusing forest of postmodernism, a comment such as ‘there is no truth except my truth and your truth’ is a profoundly illuminating proposition. Evidently it touched on a raw nerve.

‘in danger of being culturally hi-jacked’ a threat ‘like the Mafia boss who offers to protect you from criminals’? Which subtext of the text are you reading?

Finally, I agree with Jacob, in general, that people making faith-choices have generally not waded through extensive comparative research into different religions. But I do assert that people making such decisions do so on the basis of evidence - of one sort or another. It is possible to evaluate evidence - to compare one set of findings with another. I maintain that there is not a great deal of such comparative activity going on. Even postmoderns sitting round the campfire and telling each other their stories are in a position to adopt somebody else’s story - or its conclusions - and make it their own, if they want to. But that presupposes a willingness to sit down and listen. Given that as an attitude - we can change our narratives, and we are indeed not automatons. But that does not deny the power and hold of narratives over our lives.

I don’t really know why I got onto this thread - Oh yes, it was because I was struck with the need to respect and listen to each others’ narratives in a presentation I attended on the middle east. I think the best way to do this with ‘universalising’ narratives such as Islam and Judaism, for instance (though the latter is not the primary narrative which is being invoked by Israel) is to accept them for what they are: exclusivist and universalising metanarratives - rather than make them into something they are not. Oddly, I don’t think anyone on the thread disagrees with this. Actually, I doubt whether contemporary Judaism is universalist and exclusivist - but that’s another issue.