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Folk religion and split-level Christianity is found in young churches around the world. It also is common in churches in the West which saps the vitality of churches. At best it limits Christian faith to a narrow segment of people’s lives. How should missionaries and church leaders respond to the persistence of old beliefs and practices long after people have become Christian?“Properly understood, following the principles of “critical contextualization” will steer us towards an enduring solution. ow should Christians respond to split-level Christianity, including the bewildering variety of folk religions around the world? How can churches deal with the resurgence of witchcraft in Africa, spiritism in Latin America, Cargo Cults in Melanesia, new religions in Japan, and New Age and neo-paganism in North America? To ignore them and hope that they disappear as Christians grow in faith is to open the door for a syncretism that threatens the heart of the gospel. To try to stamp them out and replace them with imported beliefs and practices leads to split-level Christianity. The latter is a two-tier Christianity that persists around the world despite centuries of instruction and condemnation by missionaries and church leaders. Sidney Williamson writes, Most Christians live on two unreconciled levels. They are members of a church and ascribe to a statement of faith. But below the system of conscious belief are deeply embedded traditions and customs implying quite a different interpretation of the universe and the world of spirit from the Christian interpretation. In the crises of life and rites of passage the Church is an alien thing.(1965, 158)