Anders Behring Breivik: Christian terrorist? Right-wing extremist? Madman?

When news broke about the bombing in Olso, many commentators assumed links with Islamic extremism. When reports came of the massacre on Utøya island, perpetrated by a “tall, blonde, Nordic, man,” speculation quieted down until Anders Behring Breivik was identified. News reports first described Breivik as a “Christian terrorist,” largely on the basis of his Facebook profile and his postings to Christian fundamentalist Web sites. After his manifesto became public, Breivik was characterized as a “right-wing extremist.” To most, the Christian terrorist/right-wing extremist distinction makes little real difference: Only a madman could engage in such wanton killing.

Amid summaries of the 1500 page manifesto, Breivik’s religious beliefs are set in the context of an explicitly political agenda: his vision of a Christian Europe is predicated on the expulsion of Muslims to stem the tide of “Islamization” and “multiculturalism.” When it comes to Muslims themselves, Breivik portrays them as cunning enemies by selectively, and superficially, referencing Islamic discussions of naskh (abrogation), taqiyya (dissimulation), and jihad (exertion). As many commentators have already pointed out, the real template for the manifesto seems to be the writings of Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski. The religious content of the manifesto, especially its references to Christianity, is a hodge-podge, a series of bizarre after-thoughts buttressing Breivik’s xenophobic and paranoid worldview.

Breivik calls himself a “cultural Christian.” Religious Christians, he observes, have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, which he himself does not have. For Breivik, “Christendom” is a vehicle for preserving European self-identity and is not necessarily opposed to elements of “paganism” such as Breivik’s own “Odnistic/Norse” heritage, even though the cross, he argues, has a greater symbolic power than Thor’s hammer, Mjölnir. In spite of this, the initiation ceremony Breivik envisages for “Knights Templar” has no cross, only a candle, sword, skull.

The Christian history that Breivik seeks to reenact is not the passion of Jesus Christ, but the narrative of the Crusades. Breivik rhapsodizes about battles and lists the indulgences promises to Crusaders by Popes Urban II and Innocent III. Although he wishes that Benedict XVI would call Christendom to crusade, Breivik argues that the Roman Pontiff has been too accommodating to Islam and has thus betrayed the Church and Europe as a whole. The new Crusade will thus have to be initiated outside the authority of decadent institutional churches. Breivik’s description of how this Crusade will transpire has exaggerated contours of a computer game-it’s Valhalla via Warcraft.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/christian-terrorist-madman-how-do-we-understand-anders-behring-breivik/2011/07/25/gIQA7c6XYI_blog.html

Er, Christian.

:shrug:

Thanks, rug!

But we already know that.

Perhaps if you attempted to make a point when you post an article, you could cease with arrogant condescension and personal attacks. Then we could possibly discuss just whatever it is your point is supposed to be.


Wait. That's been tried, and all of your points have been refuted, time and time again. This tactic is all you seem to have left. How sad that is.

I haven't followed this story that closely so anything factual you could add would be helpful.

It's everywhere.


And I'm on my iPhone so it's a PIA to post links.

This like saying "so you are unable to post any links that state the sky is blue, so you got nothing."

But no one expects anything less from the apologists.

surely you can remember something, some article, some news headline, something you heard on the radio or on tv, you did say they're everywhere. Doesn't have to be a link just a source to back up what you claim not even the exact quote just what you remember and where you saw or heard it.

your viewing pleasure:

While I cannot know the inner heart of this man and his relationship to God, I can say without hesitation that his actions reveal a man who is anything but a true Christian.
http://www.electionprojection.com/blog/archives/jul11/tragedy_in_norway_not_the_fruits_of_a_true_christian_072311.php
~~
As he and Get Religion point out, Breivik’s ties to Freemasonry and desire for Christianity to return to Roman Catholicism do not fit with the traditional beliefs of true Christian fundamentalists.
http://blog.chron.com/believeitornot/2011/07/was-the-norway-attacker-a-christian-terrorist/
~~
“When I was out in Norway,” he said, “the people there thought they were Christian because they were Norwegian.” Many people in the so-called “Christian nation,” he says, claim the faith but haven't necessarily been genuinely converted.

"A true Christian would not go and ... shoot people in a camp or blow up buildings,” he said. “That's not what a Christian does. So just because a man claims to be a Christian, or even believes that he is a Christian, does not necessarily make him so."
http://www.bahamasissues.com/showthread.php?t=34520&p=589374
~~

References to more “no true Scotsman” quotes can be found here: http://homebrewedtheology.com/would-anders-breivik-be-a-tea-partier.php

Google for even more.

You're welcome.

they're everywhere. They could be for all I know I've only seen this one Post story and a couple of tv reports that's it. The claim was not made by me so the burden of proof is not mine.

n/t

"I consider myself to be 100 percent Christian."

The terrorist actions committed by Breivik a right wing christian extremist don't necessarily qualify as a the actions of a "madman" despite their horrendous nature. I think Breivik is closer in nature and actions to the Oklahoma bomber Tim McVeigh than to the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.

I reject the premise of the title that the three options are mutually exclusive, although accounts of the shooting depict someone who was thinking clearly, so madman may not be applicable.