Are You a Fan or a Fanatic?

Last updated on: September 8, 2014 at 7:00 am by Josh Daffern

Are You a Fan or a Fanatic? 2014-09-08T07:00:25-06:00 Josh Daffern

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As football season roars back to dominate American life for the foreseeable future, fans come out of the woodwork to cheer on their favorite team. The word ‘fan’ is derived from ‘fanatic,’ which makes sense when you consider this quote attributed to Winston Churchill, “A fanatic is someone who can’t change their mind and won’t change the subject.” Many sports ‘fans’ are actually sports ‘fanatics.’

What you may not know is that ‘fanatic’ is originally a religious word. Coming from the Latin word fanaticus, the term ‘fanatic’ rose up in the Middle Ages in Europe. Back then, the entire continent was Christian, or at least that’s how it appeared. A king would declare his entire nation to be Christian, and everyone was forced to convert. So you had millions of people who were Christian in name only. Into this world a new word was developed to differentiate the true followers from everyone else. They were fanaticus. They were the ones who believed in Christianity enough that it actually dictated how they lived. They were the crazy ones. The ones who lived it out.

I think we see the same thing in America today. We are a ‘Christian’ nation. The majority of Americans believe in God. The majority of Americans would consider themselves religious. We have a lot of ‘fans’ of Jesus. But how many true ‘fanatics’ are there? That’s what we’re discussing on Sunday mornings at Mt Vernon in our new sermon series Fanatics. Come join us!

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