CHRISTENDOM has had its fanatics​—from people who set themselves on fire in political protest to individuals acting intolerantly toward those holding different religious views. For example, the first Crusade was inspired by the Catholic Church to free Jerusalem from the hands of people she considered to be infidels. It began with three undisciplined mobs whose violent excesses included a pogrom of Jews in the Rhineland. When the military forces of this Crusade succeeded in taking Jerusalem, these so-called Christian soldiers turned the streets into rivers of blood.

In his book The Outline of History, H. G. Wells said of the first Crusade: “The slaughter was terrible; the blood of the conquered ran down the streets, until men splashed in blood as they rode. At nightfall, ‘sobbing for excess of joy,’ the crusaders came to the Sepulchre from their treading of the winepress, and put their blood-stained hands together in prayer.”

In a later Crusade called by Pope Innocent III, the peaceful Albigenses and Waldenses, who objected to the doctrines of Rome and the excesses of the clergy, were massacred. Regarding the fanaticism expressed against them, Wells wrote: “This was enough for the Lateran, and so we have the spectacle of Innocent III preaching a crusade against these unfortunate sectaries, and permitting the enlistment of every wandering scoundrel . . . and every conceivable outrage among the most peaceful subjects of the King of France. The accounts of the cruelties and abominations of this crusade are far more terrible to read than any account of Christian martyrdoms by the pagans.”

Christendom’s history is full of accounts of fanatics, and they have usually produced fruits of violence. So we can conclude that fanaticism does not produce good fruitage. Funk and Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary of the English Language (1929 edition) defines fanaticism in the following way: “Extravagant or frenzied zeal.” And it goes on to illustrate it with these words: “No period of history exhibits a larger amount of cruelty, licentiousness, and fanaticism than the Crusades.”

It is also of interest to note the definition given to the word “fanatic” by Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, 1961 edition. It says: ‘Fanatic​—Latin, inspired by a deity. 1. possessed by or as if by a demon; broadly: crazed, frantic, mad. 2. governed, produced, or characterized by too great zeal: extravagant, unreasonable; excessively enthusiastic, especially on religious subjects.’

The apostle Paul indicated that the time would come when imitation Christians would appear. They would bear the name Christian but not live up to it or produce its good fruits. He told elders from Ephesus: “I know that after my going away oppressive wolves will enter in among you and will not treat the flock with tenderness, and from among you yourselves men will rise and speak twisted things to draw away the disciples after themselves.” (Acts 20:29, 30) From these apostates arose Christendom with its hundreds of conflicting religious organizations teaching things that are merely represented as being Christian. Actually, they are “twisted things,” ideas of men and not the truth of God’s Word. It has been among these false Christians that the bad fruitage of fanaticism has manifested itself.