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<H1 class=headline>Is Anders Breivik a 'Christian' terrorist?</H1>
<H5 class=byline><SPAN class=name>By DAVID GIBSON Religion News
Service</SPAN></H5>
<H5 class=timestamp>Published 05:06 p.m., Thursday, July 28, 2011
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<P>The mass murders in Oslo have raised a host of agonizing questions, but few
have such contemporary resonance as whether <A
href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=news&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Anders+Behring+Breivik%22">Anders
Behring Breivik</A>, the right-wing extremist arrested in the attacks that
killed 76 Norwegians July 22, is a Christian.</P>
<P>Breivik claimed that he is a Christian in various forums, but most explicitly
and in greatest detail in the 1,500-page manifesto he compiled over several
months and posted on the Internet.</P>
<P>"At the age of 15 I chose to be baptised (sic) and confirmed in the <A
href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=news&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Norwegian+State+Church%22">Norwegian
State Church</A>," the 32-year-old Breivik wrote. "I consider myself to be 100
percent Christian."</P>
<P>But he also fiercely disagrees with the politics of most Protestant churches
and the <A
href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=news&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Roman+Catholic+Church%22">Roman
Catholic Church</A>.</P>
<P>"Regarding my personal relationship with God, I guess I'm not an excessively
religious man," he writes. "I am first and foremost a man of logic. However, I
am a supporter of a monocultural Christian Europe."</P>
<P>Breivik fashions himself a "cultural Christian" and a modern-day crusader in
a resurrected order of the medieval Knights Templar, riding out to do battle
against squishy "multiculturalism" and the onslaught of "Islamization."</P>
<P>Not surprisingly, conservative pundits who share some of Breivik's views and
also consider themselves Christians quickly sought to distance themselves from
Breivik by declaring, as <A
href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=news&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Bill+O%27Reilly%22">Bill
O'Reilly</A> did on Fox News, that "Breivik is not a Christian."</P>
<P>O'Reilly said Tuesday, "No one believing in Jesus commits mass murder. The
man might have called himself a Christian on the 'net, but he is certainly not
of that faith."</P>
<P>His point was taken up by any number of commentators and
religion scholars.</P>
<P>Mathew N. Schmalz, a professor of religious studies at the <A
href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=news&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22College+of+the+Holy+Cross%22">College
of the Holy Cross</A>, wrote in a Washington Post column that Breivik's vision
"is a Christianity without Christ" because the attacker rejected a personal
relationship with Jesus.</P>
<P>Writing in The Guardian, <A
href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=news&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Andrew+Brown%22">Andrew
Brown</A> wrote that "even in his saner moments (Breivik's) ideology had nothing
to do with Christianity but was based on an atavistic horror of Muslims and a
loathing of 'Marxists,' by which he meant anyone to the left of <A
href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=news&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Genghis+Khan%22">Genghis
Khan</A>."</P>
<P>But others pushed back against such a carefully cordoned-off interpretation
of Breivik's faith, or Christianity itself.</P>
<P>"If he did what he has alleged to have done, Anders Breivik is a Christian
terrorist," <A
href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=news&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Boston+University%22">Boston
University</A> religion scholar <A
href="http://www.timesunion.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=news&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Stephen+Prothero%22">Stephen
Prothero</A> wrote on CNN.com.</P>
<P>"Yes, he twisted the Christian tradition in directions most Christians would
not countenance. But he rooted his hate and his terrorism in Christian thought
and Christian history, particularly the history of the medieval Crusades against
Muslims, and current efforts to renew that clash."</P>
<P>"So Christians have a responsibility to speak out forcefully against him, and
to look hard at the resources in the Christian tradition that can be used to
such murderous ends."</P>
<P>Andrew Sullivan, the popular blogger and Catholic, wrote that "it is obvious
that Christians can commit murder, assault, etc. They do so every day. Because,
as Christian orthodoxy tells us, we are all sinners. To say that no Christian
can ever commit murder is a sophist's piffle. ... Do the countless criminals who
have gone to church or believe in Jesus immediately not count as Christians the
minute they commit the crime? Of course not."</P>
<P>Sullivan said Bill O'Reilly's argument "is complete heresy in terms of the
most basic Christian orthodoxy."</P>
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<DIV
class=hst-ysm>______________________________________</DIV></DIV></DIV></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Verdana>Wayne A. Fox<BR><A
href="mailto:wayne.a.fox@gmail.com">wayne.a.fox@gmail.com</A><BR></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>