Southwestern journal examines American religious movements

FORT WORTH, Texas (BP) - The latest edition of the Southwestern Journal of Theology provides insight into the religious marketplace mentality that shapes most Americans and examines how views drawn from other religious traditions have infected Christian churches.

"Americans and others ... do not appear to be single store shoppers," the edition's editor, Paul Gritz, writes in the editorial introduction to the volume.

"A more subtle challenge for evangelical Christians arises from the 'mixing and matching' of religious beliefs from several stores. People seem to want to customize their religious lives and draw on many sources to do so."

Gritz, professor of church history at Southwestern's Fort Worth, Texas, campus, cites a 2002 Barna Research Group study which notes that Christians have adopted spiritual views from Islam, secular humanism, Eastern religions and even Wicca. Barna cites biblical illiteracy as the reason for the trend.

The journal, published by Southwestern Seminary, focuses on four of the most prominent non-Christian religious movements today - Mormonism, the Jehovah's Witnesses, Wicca and the "Pop Psychology" movement.