An article written by my father, the Rev. C. Thomas Paige, as it appeared in the Tri-State Defender on the date shown.
THE FUTILITY OF FANATICISM
A few weeks ago a fiend of mine was boasting over the fact that he is a “religious fanatic.” In the absence of true knowledge of fanaticism, he was under the illusion that he was paying himself a great honor. But what does the fanatic have to offer?
Let me hurriedly say our world is in the present condition because we have been blessed or cursed with the presence of those good or bad people known as fanatics. A definition acceptable to all of us would force one to see that in the truest sense, a fanatic is one who believes in extremes. He is an extremist. He does not concern himself with the law, per se, but rather with the letter of the law.
I am told that in the parable of the “Good Samaritan,” two people were concerned not with doing something here and now but with going on to Jericho and exclaiming about the horrors of the Jericho road. The man who means most to the world is the man who concerns himself with the immediate needs of a bleeding society, here and now. The fanatic concerns himself with the horrors of his day and time but never once does he put forth his hand to do anything about it.
SOCIETY OF FANATICS
We live in a society full of fanatics. Certain of us have been exposed to a little knowledge, certain others to material wealth, certain others of us feel that we hold a certain corner on the deepest secrets of the Bible, and we end up being fanatics. Unfortunately, we just cannot lull ourselves into believing that because we have certain things in our possession that we have solved all of the problems of life.
We cannot move around here on this earth feeling that we have this or we have that and everyone else has to bow to us. Yet our world is filled with people who are living under the illusion that because I have this or that, I am better than so and so. Life has an unusual way of leveling off things. We cannot rejoice over the fact that today we enjoy this or that, because tomorrow might find us in the same squalor that we saw another man in yesterday.
DAY OF TENSION
We live in a day of tensions; things are working on people’s nerves as never before, people are working on one another’s nerves as never before. Thousands of people are suffering from this neurosis or that neurosis.
Thousands of others are suffering from one phobia or another. Each day, if you listen carefully enough, you will hear the statement “I just can’t stand her (him). He just gets on my nerves!” In the language of the psychologist, people are “wound up!”
Something must happen and happen now that is going to unwind us. We just can’t keep on going at this dizzy pace. Someone who has solved his problem must come on the scene and show us how to solve ours. The stress and strain of the economic and social obligations of today has made all of us jumpy. We have come to the place where the least thing will cause us to “blow our tops.”
WE ARE HYSTERICAL
Our world is much akin to those disciples who are in a ship going to the other side of the river. About mid-way on their journey, a storm arose. They, like many of us, became distracted and neurotic. Their very bodies were filled with hysteria. They thought that any minute the end might come. There are those of us now who are just like those disciples – we are hysterical, neurotic, and what have you. We have come to a place where we feel that truly life cannot get much worse than it is now. Then suddenly someone thought that there was someone in the front of the boat who was not concerned about all that was going on, and when he was aroused, it was not fanaticism that He brought into the picture but with a calm assurance He spoke and the waters and winds moved back into their confines and life assumed its usual activities.
Today we need not someone who comes with some fanatical answer to the problems but someone who through study, prayer, and meditation, has arrived at an answer which will take away the cares, frustrations and the like of this world.
No, my friends, this is no day for snap judgement, this is no day for fanaticism. THis is the day when calm heads must bring forth to a troubled world workable, liveable, and soul-endearing ideas that will bring peace and harmony to this world.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
When did he write that piece/sermon? The language doesn’t seem tethered to one particular time.
— Terry
Oops … sorry, didn’t see the date at the top.
I’ve been trying to pick articles that are not really time sensitive.
Thomas Merton (a Catholic monk during about the same time period) on Fanaticism:
Fanaticism is never really spiritual because it is not free. It is not free because it is not enlightened. It cannot judge between good and evil, truth and falsity, because it is blinded by prejudice. Faith and prejudice have a common need to rely on authority and in this they can cometimes be confused by one who does not understand their true nature. But faith rests on the authority of love while prejudice rests on the pseudo-authority of hatred. Everyone who has read the Gospel realizes that in order to be a Christian one must give up being a fanatic, because Christianity is love. Love and fanaticism are incompatible. Fanaticism thrives on aggression. It is destructive, revengeful, and sterile. Fanaticism is all the more virulent in proportion as it springs from inability to love, from incapacity to reciprocate human understanding.
Fanaticism refuses to look at another man as a person. It regards him only as a thing. He is either a “member” or he is not a member. He is either partof one’s own mob, or he is outside of the mob. Woe to him, above all, if he stands outside the mob with the mute protest of his individual personality! That was what happened at the Crucifixion of Christ. Christ, the Incarnate Son of God, came as a Person, seeking the understanding, the acceptance and the love of free persons. He found Himself face to face with a compact fanatical group, that wanted nothing of His person. They feared His disturbing uniqueness. It was necessary, as Caiaphas said, that this “one man should die for the nation” — be sacrificed to the collectivity. From its very birth, Christianity has been categorically opposed to everything that savors of the mass-movement.
One of my favorite passages of Merton’s work.
Interesting. I’m not familiar with Merton. Guess I need to look him up 😉
The essay was Christianity and Totaltarianism, and it is in a book I have which collected some of his writings. Great essay.
Merton is an interesting character. Catholic, but he infused much of the Eastern (as in Bhuddist) tradition into his spirituality.
Looking forward to the next installment of your father’s sermons!!!
I post one each Sunday.
Vivian,
So, I hope you have a good The Pulpit Speaks lined up for July 23.
By original content I certainly didn’t mean to exclude material written by someone other than the blogger, himself/herself. If a blogger has the proper right to publish a piece written by someone else, work that isn’t widely available elsewhere, that’s original content in my book. In such a case the blogger is acting as publisher, rather than as writer/publisher.
Although the challenge of Weekend Without Echoes is aimed mostly at writers, I expect we’ll see several variations on the theme during that weekend. Maybe some art? At least I hope so.
With your father’s work you have access to what appears to be a trove of timeless thinking about what counts most. Thank you for sharing it.
— Terry
As I mentioned here, he wrote a weekley column. The column began in 1956 and ran thru about 1963, so I do have quite a few (some weeks are missing).I have the actual newspaper clippings. What I don’t have are the ones he wrote after we moved to Virginia in 1963, when he worked for the local newspaper, The Journal & Guide. I need to go to the library and try to track those down.