ABSTRACT
This chapter describes two tasks in "defining syncretism"; one task concerns the phenomenon of syncretism, the other task relates to the notion of syncretism. Kraemer claimed that syncretism is innate to particular non-Christian religions, whereas history demonstrates that anti-syncretism is mainly an invention of Christianity. The case studies in this volume concerning power and cultural interpenetration are connected with the history of Western colonialism together with Christianity on the domineering end of the leash. Based on Melanesian ethnography, has constructed a theory which combines theories of memory from the field of cognitive science with the study of social and political mechanisms in religion. A survey of the discourses of syncretism in a general historical perspective is in itself valuable information; in addition to bringing up to date the adjustments of the scientific discourse on the subject. Scholarly categories are also socio-cultural categories they are, just like syncretism, "social facts" and made by humans.
