FANATICISM

“Offspring of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart brings out good things; and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings out evil things. But I say to you that every idle word, whatever men may speak, they shall give account of it in the day of judgment”, Mat.12:34-36

Fanaticism is taken as the true gospel only by such who care not about God.

Any fanatic person is either an unconverted person, or is refusing to live a converted way himself. The fact is that fanatics wish after the fruit of the tree of righteousness without going through the pains and hard work of becoming righteous in essence themselves. That’s mainly why they are fervent fanatics, since it has that special power to blind them about what the gospel is all about: personal salvation from self and total, unconditional freedom from its sin. Fanatics try all not to sin the sins they have in their minds as sins, so they may spare self from dying by having ways of obedience especially designed for them.

Preaching may be a way to expound truths and realities one lives and sticks by – naturally or not – or it may become a sharp way of ducking away from a genuiness of heart concerning holiness, love, faith and hope among many other special outcomes of a real, genuine relationship with the Spirit of God. If fruit and breeding issues is not what and how we preach about, we will preach about what we wish to be truth practiced by self, the main enemy of God. Self will always sell itself to be spared, becoming a prostituted proselyte, bringing ungodliness into the temple of God, demanding any kind of blessing through hard work and sacrifice (many times at any cost). A fanatic does not wish to fix his life with God, but will rather want God to fix His Life with and towards him; and for that reason he ascertains and stipulates certain truths, half-truths and many doctrines, as many as possible, as a way to preach from and about accurately and in such a way that will always rob him off the time and the vision to look into his own inside patiently.

A fanatic is an impatient person – mostly impatient towards himself. He does not take enough time on his own knees for the right reasons and only will he do so for the wrong reasons. He won’t bow unless it is thought of as a demand to convert others or just as a way to reach and have a blessing rewarding self for doing so. The way he deals with himself, ascertaining that he has no sin (even when he says he has so as to make a point to others he thinks have sins, I mean that he acknowledges his sins so others may see theirs), the way he refuses to look at his own heart, dealing harshly with it through abstinence above conversion, thinking and believing that to be the way of emerging into becoming a cake without going through the heat of an oven, that same way is used as a refusal to let go upon others touching their sins – or towards what he believes is their sin.

A fanatic is always someone compromised with the knowledge that he has from the gospel, yet is not committed or compromised with the Life of that same gospel. A fanatic refuses exposure. Exposure is the only way to deal with and against sin, for sin lives by darkness alone and it sins only as long as it is not exposed. Fanatics give a mind meaning of their own to themselves concerning living in the Light. The Bible says Light-living is exposure, fanatics make it understood it is praying, preaching, and acknowledging such sins as they do not commit, sticking to the courts of the temple or whatever else they breed in their own minds to assure them.

Fanatics preach mostly to such as preach, and criticize such as live in sin openly because they cannot stand to the fact that they wish after sin themselves still. Criticism is always a way of dealing in such a way that is thought of as the source of abstinence and of victory over what a fanatic thinks and prompts himself to believe he cannot touch. He believes he is away from what terribly tempts him that way. Preaching to holy people grants himself that special comfort to feel at home among holy ones. He deceives himself in a double way, for he is sinful and segregates himself from sinners and, being unholy, he forces himself into a Life which is not his own due to his refusal to be living in the light for real, by acknowledging what he sees as the source of sin: exposure of own sins. Fanaticism is always a strong unwillingness to be converted, mastering the art of deceit towards self even, making every word vain for others as well as for the one enticed to become deceitful towards himself. Fanaticism is self-deceit, unwillingness to turn to God unless in appearance alone to spare self from dying, disobedience covered up by some words and ways stolen and borrowed from truth.

There is a story about a man and his son riding a chariot somewhere. They overheard another chariot coming and this father asked his son what he could make out of the sound coming, what kind of chariot it was. His son said he did not know, but he could guess it was an empty chariot. His father asked why he thought the chariot was empty. He said it was empty because he could make out it was noisy and bumping a lot. Then his father said, “Yes, it is true indeed. Remember, the emptier the chariot, the noisier it becomes”. This is something one should always remember about the gospel: the noisier it is, the less truthful it is. And it is never God’s fault if it is so.

Only a fanatic will join another fanatic, just as only a holy one will walk together with another holy one. “Can two walk together unless they are agreed?” Amos 3:3. Amen.

José Mateus