Hedgehog Gospel

Isaiah Berlin’s 1953 essay, “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” famously divides thinkers into two groups, those who chase after the knowledge of many things and those who relate everything to a central vision. One problem with the latter group is a tendency to explain the whole world and solve its problems through a structure or system of their own -devising.

William H. Harrison seems to have fallen victim to this tendency in his book, In Praise of Mixed Religion: The Syncretism Solution in a Multifaith World. The Reverend Doctor Harrison, principal of the Kootenay School of Ministry in the Anglican Diocese of Kootenay in British Columbia, sees religious syncretism, or the amalgamation of religious ideas, everywhere and in everyone. His book is built on three assertions: everyone is religious, all religion is syncretistic and, on the whole, this is good. He urges us all to embrace...