I think maybe Jhimm got caught in the backwash of my inflammatory comment triggering Peter’s response, which was quite even-handed considering that I compared him not only to George Bush but also to a Mafioso.

Syncretism is surely a relative construct, viz. the Roman Catholic Church’s reluctance to open the Communion table to non-Catholics and the tendency in American Christianity to form new schisms over seemingly trivial doctrinal differences. Frequently those in favor of schismatic purity regard the outsiders as syncretists.

Peter asserts certain core components of the biblical narrative: there is only one god; Jesus is Lord even of those who don’t recognize him. Even those who acknowledge the Bible as inerrant don’t all agree on both of these points. Then there’s the question of how the Biblical text itself should be regarded: is it wholly the word of God, or is it alloyed with the word of man in some unspecified proportion? Yahweh’s petulance and jealousy regarding the neighboring gods, for example: is it His real call to remain resolutely separate from all other religious traditions, or is it an all-too-human competitivenes projected onto God? Peter says, "on their own terms, Judaism and Christianity don’t allow for incorporation into a harmonising synthesis with other religions." Is it possible to envision a harmonizing synthesis of contemporary Judaism and Christianity? If so, must anything short of the Jews’ acknowledgment of Christ as Lord be deemed syncretistic?

"It is finished” - John 19:30 (literally - “It is perfectly perfect”) . Or maybe it wasn’t? I wouldn’t want to appear inflammatory!"

Well I’d say the parenthetical translation is a theologically charged interpretation of a much more ordinary Greek word. I’d say "It is finished" is a better literal translation — or am I being syncretistic?