Church growth through compromise produces counterfeit Christianity. Once the Roman emperors embraced it, Roman church membership grew explosively, but only because church leaders chose not to be too hard on prospective members. Some reasoned that if Christianity were to conquer the world, it could best do so by relaxing the teachings of Christ that the world perceived as too rigid. The Worldwide Church of God did exactly this in the '80s and '90s. A second method was syncretism: blending popular pagan beliefs and practices with Christian ones. Because the masses would not give up their superstitious customs, the church added Christian concepts to pagan feasts, so that for almost every pagan ceremony some Christian rite was introduced. Lupercalia, a lewd festival of sex and lust, was popular with the pagan populace, so in AD 496 Pope Gelasius renamed it St. Valentine's Day and moved it from February 15 to 14, keeping the crowds while changing the label. The result was apathy about how to worship God and moral decay. God forbids this approach. He told Israel not to inquire how the nations served their gods and worship Him likewise (Deuteronomy 12:29-31), and Paul likens mixing paganism with Christianity to fellowship with demons (I Corinthians 10:19-21). True worship is in spirit and truth, not drawn from the world to attract a following.