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"Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world...
Defining a fanatic - "...a fanatic is someone who redoubles his efforts when he has forgotten his aim. In this case, even if the aim has not been forgotten, it is simply irrelevant. But the effort has been redoubled anyway."
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The first quote I take obvious issue with at face value as I believe faith not to be intellectual suicide, but intellectual engagement. Where I agree with the authors though is the close mindedness of most church going people to question and explore the faith they've been brought up with. I believe one of the greatest challenges of the Christian faith is to those who've been indoctrinated with it from their youth critically thinking about how they interpreted what they were taught and what sort of Christian worldview was shaped as a result. My challenge is faith must be owned by the person. You see this as college age students go through crisis of faith that leaves them with a personalized and thought out version of what they grew up with. Even when that crisis happens, however, we must never think we've gotten a handle on faith or on how church ought to be done. The false presupposition we can know all of God is deadly, for God is very much mystery, and while we are uncomfortable with mystery I believe faith in Jesus must live out in a certain fog of mystery and be comfortable in the tension of it.
Now to the second point. The Church has become fanatical to a point. I believe this because I see the same methods being used as those used 10, 20, and even 30 years ago. But we preach to a different culture. We relate to a different culture. However, the way we relate to the culture in terms of bringing Jesus to bear on it seems to differ little. Change is one of the most difficult things for the church to do. We vest ourselves into learning the latest methodologies only to find they are outdated. I would argue that we've become fanatics in the ways described above in two ways: first, we've continued with forgetting our aim. Programs can be a temptation toward forgetting why you're doing what you're doing. They provide a false sense of security. I do believe they are necessary, but I also believe in analyzing their effectiveness. Second, our methods have become irrelevant but we're redoubling our efforts at them anyway. So we see things not working (we know the program is now outdated), but instead of asking the 'why' question seeking to find out why they aren't working we ask the 'how' question to discover how we can tweak things to make them work again. It's always easier to do this than do any sort of overhaul.
Life in general presents continuous opportunities for change and growth. Faith does much of the same things. I believe if we look at the gospels Jesus is one to bring about dramatic change to the fanatics of his time, namely the Pharisees. Their methods weren't working. Indoctrination into the way they defined faith was done exclusively, not inclusively. Jesus blows the doors wide open and invites all who are intrigued by this new way of life. They didn't fit the mold, because what the mold looked like and did was changing.
I believe I, and any follower of Christ, is continually called to rethink and reapply Jesus to their culture. I'm not saying the truths of our faith change as much as the communications of that truth must change for the furthering of the Kingdom. I also don't want to condemn the church, but to provoke its thought. It's God's chosen vessel for the message, so I love it, but I love it in such a way I want to see it thrive.
