It is a well-known tactic to label those with whom you do not agree. You hear it attached to the right wing usually accompanied by extreme or radical.
Just what does it mean to be extreme? According to the dictionary extreme is “furthest from the center or given point. Let’s look at some results of polls taken here in America.
86% believe in God
78% believe in Jesus Christ
87% believe in voluntary student-led prayer
67% believe define marriage between one man and one woman.
Over half of Americans identify themselves as pro-life.
So Christians who believes in marriage between one man and one woman and respect life are in the center of American opinion. Who is extreme?
And radical is defined as “advocating thorough or complete political reform.” What is so radical about supporting marriage as a man and a woman? Isn't joining together to create the next generation the natural order of the life cycle?
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So many Christians and Conservatives allow themselves to be intimidated by various labels aimed at bullying them into silence: "Right-wing fanatic," "Christian fanatic," "Homophobe," "Zealot," and "Extremist" to name but a few. It was Gabriel Marcel, in Man Against Mass Society, who reminded us that, "Fanaticism is essentially opinion pushed to paroxysm; with everything that the notion of opinion may imply of blinded ignorance as to its own nature....whatever ends the fanatic is aiming at or thinks he is aiming at, even if he wishes to gather men together, he can only in fact separate them; but as his own interests cannot lie in effecting this separation, he is led, as we have seen, to wish to wipe his opponents out. And when he is thinking of these opponents, he takes care to form the most degrading images of them possible - they are 'lubricious vipers' or 'hyenas and jackals with typewriters' - and the ones that reduce them to most grossly material terms. In fact, he no longer thinks of these opponents except as material obstacles to be overturned or smashed down. Having abandoned the behaviour of a thinking being, he has lost even the feeblest notion of what a thinking being, outside himself, could be. It is understandable therefore that he should make every effort to deny in advance the rights and qualifications of those whom he wishes to eliminate; and that he should regard all means to this end as fair.."
ReplyDeleteThere are those who would paint Christians and Conservatives as "fanatics" in an attempt to sanitize the Public Square of religious belief and conservative principles and to isolate these in a ghetto. We cannot permit such people to get away with this cheap tactic. There is a profound difference between fanaticism and commitment.
As Dr. Montague Brown, professor of philosophy at Saint Anselm College, has said, "Commitment is the deliberate choice to dedicate ourselves to some project, cause or person. Such a choice is based on a considered judgment of the worth of the project, cause, or person and an awareness of what we must give up to be so committed....Fanaticism is the blind dedication to some project, cause, or person. Fanaticism verges on not being a choice, for the fanatic is so single-minded that he does not deliberate about the worth of the project, cause, or person nor consider the cost of such dedication." (The One-Minute Philosopher, pp. 16-17, Sophia Institute Press, Manchester, New Hampshire).
It is most ironic that the very people who accuse Christians and Conservatives of being "fanatics" are themselves dedicated to projects or causes (and occasionally persons) the worth of which they have not deliberated upon.
We live in an age which has replaced slogans and propaganda for truth. And we are poorer for it.
A truly great man (and a personal hero) is saying that the world has "lost that hope" with which it once turned to America as a moral leader:
ReplyDeletehttp://catholicexchange.com/2010/02/06/126844/print/