Interfaith worship …

Christian Century, Dec 19, 2001 by Arvid Adell

THE DECISION by the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod to file formal charges of syncretism against its president, Gerald Kieschnick, raises disturbing questions (News, Dec. 5).

Does praying with the spiritual leaders of faiths other than one's own constitute syncretism--"the mingling of Christianity with other religions in the belief they are all equal"? I fail to see any connection between Kieschnick's magnanimous act of joining with members of other religious persuasions, and any implicit admission on his part that all of the belief systems represented there should be considered as equal.

The conviction that there are absolute, universal, objective truths and values, and the belief that any group, including the Missouri Synod, knows infallibly what they are, are two entirely different matters.

Arvid Adell
Roscoe, Ill.