Most people probably know someone who has has gone off the deep end when it comes to religion. You could compare them to someone addicted to a prescription medication or recreational drug. The point is that they can't make it through the day without "self-medicating." Popping another religion-pill.
Before feeling superior to that person, a non-religious person should admit that human beings need a certain amount of emotional comfort -- perhaps coming from a violent catharsis -- and if there aren't constructive approaches to that issue, people will be find a bad approach.
Let's back up a step and try to summarize the history of Christianity over the last 500 years, in just a few sentences. The Protestant Reformation brought on a century of religious wars that discredited the whole idea of taking religion seriously. At the same time, the Scientific Revolution happened.
So, in the 1700s, European intellectuals outgrew their Christian traditions. They had enough common sense not to throw out the 'baby with the bathwater.' They just wanted to deemphasize sadistic notions like eternal Hell, silly miracle stories, and the bloodthirsty tribalism of the Old Testament. They wanted to keep the good morality associated with Christianity.
Of course, this liberation only affected the thinking classes. It took several generations to trickle down to the average peasant.
The modernized Christians of the Age of Enlightenment meant well, but they produced a religion that was the moral equivalent of decaffeinated coffee. An American pioneer moving West in the early 1800s had some real struggles. They didn't want decaffeinated Christianity. They needed religion to smack their head like a half bottle of whiskey. They needed a catharsis.
On top of that, Romanticism was raging and trendy. It glorified emotional intensity, rather than the restraint and decorum of the Age of Enlightenment.
So, although respectable, establishment Christianity has been fighting (and losing) a rear guard action against Science and Biblical scholarship since 1750, low-church ("Bible church") Protestantism has evolved on a separate, parallel track; they moved to End Times prophecies as their last refuge. After all, nobody can disprove a prophesy because it hasn't happened yet. Hence, Christian Zionism.
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