A serious threat to any religion is fanaticism. One likes to think his or her faith is safe from it, but the reality is many utilize faith and religion for other motives of propaganda. In the meantime, they radicalize the base of believers to push forth very unreligious ideals.
To many non religious this is one of the most unattractive elements of religion. While it may be a bad quality of misused faith, it definitely does not dismiss faith and religion on the whole. Instead it shows the dangers of corruption of anything, not just faith. When extremist views enter into any philosophy, politics, religion or ideals, then the chance of corruption exists. Hence it is important especially in faith to protect it from radicalism. Radicalism itself is much a sin against faith than non belief itself.
In this short blog, we will look how radicalization and fanaticism can in particular harm the Christian faith and the individual believer.
The first element of fanaticism is pride. Pride in one’s faith at the expense of charity and humility. Christians have pride in Christ. They boast Christ. However, when Christians boast Christ in spite of personal humility and unworthiness, then Satan easily twists faith into pride and corrupts it. Like the Pharisees of old, pride corrupts them and blinds them to the need of others and places themselves on a pedestal above others.
Fanaticism in addition to corrupting faith with pride, creates division instead of unity. It no longer places others as those in need of the Gospel but those in contradiction to the Gospel. It dehumanizes those who are not of the same faith. It creates a City on the Hill that sees itself as better and deserving of special graces. It looks to condemn others instead of forgive others and creates a “us” vs “them”
Fanaticism over emphasizes certain dogmas and places them over other ideals. Due to this poor interpretation, it collects a cult of believers within a certain faith that become schismatics. Hence fanaticism is also a cult within a religious cloak. It distorts dogma, over-emphasizes certain points, and refuses to discuss compromise on interpretation.
Religious radicalism also militarizes believers. It places within the heart of believers a do or die feeling of impending doom. This is how it galvanizes believers to the point of looking beyond one’s neighbor and only seeing the dogma. In this, they are willing to die for concepts at the expense of other people.
Ironically, our faith does call for certain things similar to radicalized faith. It does call for a certainty. It does condemn religious indifferentism. It does preach a radical ideal of spreading the Gospel and putting Christ in our all aspects of our life but these ideals are properly weighed with reason, obedience and most importantly charity.
We are called to love Christ at the highest level. We are called to be religiously zealous in our life. But when that love is distorted by dogmatism, hate, division and pride, then the fruit becomes corrupt. So being openly religious is not fanaticism in itself. We are called to be active Christians, but retaining the term Christian is the key. Pride, war in the name of religion, fear, division, and condemnation of others is not what Christianity is.
Christ Himself was religious but He was no fanatic. He was fanatic about the faith, but His actions were not fanatic in thought and deed. Instead, He insisted upon love and mercy and humility. These ideals call for practical action to love one’s neighbor. He yet balanced this love of neighbor also with strong faith. He did not deviate from the truth but promoted it.
Being a religious person hence is very different than being a religious fanatic. Fanatics may share some elements of a religious person, but they are distorted by pride, hate, judgement, dogmatism, disobedience and division. While a religious person strongly holds to their beliefs, a fanatic takes it a step farther, and finds superiority in faith and any lack of conformity a threat.
So in our faith, we need to define what extreme is? Can our love of Christ ever be too extreme? Certainly not. We are called to love God with our whole heart, our whole mind and our whole self, but in that love, that very extreme love, we are also called to love our neighbor. Extreme love of neighbor entails remaining strong to the truth, but it also entails love and communication when we disagree.
This is the true nature of ecumenism. Ecumenism is how we spread the Gospel in a Christ like way not a fanatic way. Ecumenism is about dialogue and discussion of faith. It is about seeing the beauty of God in all faiths, but also clearly defining differences but in a loving way. It does not condemn others but it looks to define what the faith teaches and why. False ecumenism looks to indifferentism and is equally a sin against faith as fanaticism. The fanatic will condemn and create division while the false ecumenist will create a false unity and deny the faith ultimately for the sake of fake communion.
Hence again is the balance of a true religious person. One who is steadfast but not ready to bargain away the faith for false unity, but neither one who will judge and condemn others in the name of God for personal pride and promotion of a creed over others.
Christ did not force conversion nor did He water down the truth. While religions in the past have committed horrible atrocities, if we follow the model of Christ, then we can truly be fanatic about our faith without being radical.
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Fanatics, Extremists, and Religion by Charles Sullivan