Fanaticism

I just watched an expose on television of a recognized cult that refuses to make public all sexual abuse in their congregations. These people are ‘zealous’ in their religion yet many call them fanatics because of this and other extremes, or at least those we know about.

I wonder how many people shy away from Christianity because they don’t want to become fanatics like these or other cult members or some extremists within the Christian church. Tozer says that even some Christians are hindered from receiving the full power of the Holy Spirit for fear being called a fanatic. What is the difference between a person deeply devoted to Jesus Christ (or to anything else) and one labeled a fanatic?

Webster says a fanatic has an outlook or behavior especially exhibited by excessive enthusiasm, unreasoning zeal, or wild and extravagant notions on some subject. My first question to that is: who decides what is excessive, wild or extravagant? Those who are ‘fanatics’ don’t think what they do is excessive but correct.

Wikipedia has a longer article with several illustrations. It uses descriptions such as “belief or behavior involving uncritical zeal, or an obsessive enthusiasm.” One philosopher says it is "redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim." The fanatic holds strict standards with little tolerance for contrary ideas.

Others says fanatics pursue or defend their beliefs in extreme passion going beyond normal. It is ‘blind faith’ with an absence of reality. Fanatics even persecute those who do not agree with them. Their beliefs might be true, but their expression of what they believe excludes every other idea, making everyone wrong whose ideas are contrary.

Other observations try to define obsessive behavior as that which violates prevailing social norms. Their interest can be ‘normal’ but the “scale of the person's involvement, devotion, or obsession with the activity or cause is abnormal or disproportionate to the average.” Again, who defines average?

I raise these questions because in the case of Jesus Christ, many would call Him a fanatic. He was not an average man and did not live an average life. He owned nothing and traveled from place to place talking about the kingdom of God. This ‘work’ began when the Holy Spirit of God came upon Him at His baptism:

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” (Luke 3:21–22)

Nothing Jesus did fit with ‘normal’ and because He was so ‘fanatic’ about the will of God and the way of salvation, the ‘average’ religious people of that day put Him to death. Yet their insistence on keeping rules (they had more than 600 of them) and doing everything their way could be called fanaticism too. Who defines ‘normal’ and who can interpret the ‘normal’ as defined by God? Many claim they have it right, but how can they prove it?

Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) Even today, some call that a form of fanaticism, if not in Jesus, most certainly in Christians who insist that salvation is through Jesus Christ alone, not anything we do or say.

If the writers of Scripture defined fanaticism, what would they say? Actually, that word is not in the Bible, but the word “zeal” is, and it can be positive or negative. It seems to me that this is true today. I like what Timothy Keller says in his book “The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism”:

Think of people you consider fanatical. They’re overbearing, self-righteous, opinionated, insensitive, and harsh. Why? It’s not because they are too Christian but because they are not Christian enough. They are fanatically zealous and courageous, but they are not fanatically humble, sensitive, loving, empathetic, forgiving, or understanding—as Christ was. Because they think of Christianity as a self-improvement program they emulate the Jesus of the whips in the temple, but not the Jesus who said, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone” (John 8:7). What strikes us as overly fanatical is actually a failure to be fully committed to Christ and his gospel.

Wow! Tozer reminds me that “God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). He also says that the Holy Spirit is the cure for fanaticism, not the cause of it because the heart in which the Holy Spirit lives will be characterized by gentleness, lowliness, quietness, meekness and forbearance. We will be in the process of becoming like Jesus.

^^^^^^^^^^^^

Oh Jesus, today You deepen my understanding of what it means to be zealous for You and how that zeal can be misinterpreted if I act like the people Keller describes. Becoming like You means fanatical humility, loving others and going to the extreme to show them Your amazing grace. There are lots of things in this life that people can be fanatical or zealous about, yet for me the only important one is You.