"Breivik": A predator who posed as a protector

Tim Drake has written a good piece for National Catholic Register about how some in the media, led by The New York Times, are working hard to pin the descriptive "Christian" on mass murderer Anders Breivik:

So the New York Times described Norway's mass murderer with its headline: "Christian Extremist is Charged in Norway."

Does the fact that Breivik said he was a Christian make him one? Does the fact that he dressed in a police uniform make him a police officer?

We shall know they are Christians, the song tells us, by their love.

Is there anything in Breivik's actions that suggests love?

A minimal requirement of a Christian is that one be a follower of Christ. Anders Breivik admits that he has no relationship with Christ and that he does not pray. Neither, does it seem, that he participated in any kind of formal, communal Christian worship.

Breivik's actions display nothing but hatred.

Describing Breivik as a "Christian" is more a sign of the animus of the NY Times than the allegiance of Anders Breivik.

The Times, for instance, could have just as easily used the headline "Norwegian Extremist Charged in Killings." But that headline doesn't carry quite the same message does it?

(To be fair to the Times, the newspaper has a history of supporting efforts demanding that posers be allowed to take on titles and offices they don't hodl or cannot hold. For example, a Time's piece published last week valiantly took up the cause, once again, of priestettes:

More than 150 Roman Catholic priests in the United States have signed a statement in support of a fellow cleric who faces dismissal for participating in a ceremony that purported to ordain a woman as a priest, in defiance of church teaching.

The American priests' action follows closely on the heels of a "Call to Disobedience" issued in Austria last month by more than 300 priests and deacons. They stunned their bishops with a seven-point pledge that includes actively promoting priesthood for women and married men, and reciting a public prayer for "church reform" in every Mass.

And in Australia, the National Council of Priests recently released a ringing defense of the bishop of Toowoomba, who had issued a pastoral letter saying that, facing a severe priest shortage, he would ordain women and married men "if Rome would allow it." After an investigation, the Vatican forced him to resign.

While these disparate acts hardly amount to a clerical uprising and are unlikely to result in change, church scholars note that for the first time in years, groups of priests in several countries are standing with those who are challenging the church to rethink the all-male celibate priesthood.

Yes, and back in the 300s, church scholars noted that for first time, a large number of priests and bishops were holding to the false teachings of Arius. And we all know how well the Church of Arius is doing today. Slendidly!)

Meanwhile, Ann Coulter notes that the Times insistence on Breivik being Christian is in contrast to how it reported on another murderous shooting spree:

This was a big departure from the Times' conclusion-resisting coverage of the Fort Hood shooting suspect, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. Despite reports that Hasan shouted "Allahu Akbar!" as he gunned down his fellow soldiers at a military medical facility in 2009, only one of seven Times articles on Hasan so much as mentioned that he was a Muslim.

Of course, that story ran one year after Hasan's arrest, so by then, I suppose, the cat was out of the bag.

In fact, however, Americans who jumped to conclusions about Hasan were right and New York Times reporters who jumped to conclusions about Breivik were wrong.

True, in one lone entry on Breivik's gaseous 1,500-page manifesto, "2083: A European Declaration of Independence," he calls himself "Christian." But unfortunately he also uses a great number of other words to describe himself, and these other words make clear that he does not mean "Christian" as most Americans understand the term. (Incidentally, he also cites The New York Times more than a half-dozen times.)

Now, it would be ridiculous to insist that individuals calling themselves "Christians" are, by virtue of doing so, free from the ability to murder, steal, etc. Of course not. But for all of the talk over the past few decades of "right-wing" violence and "fundamentalist hatred" and so forth, it's revealing that nearly all politically-motivated acts of murder and violence have been committed by left-wingers (how about the Weather Underground, for starters?) and that lone "spree" killers are usually completely unhinged. And if they do hold to religious beliefs, they are either extremely vague or the sort that Christians would deem "false" or "heretical" (as in the case of Timothy McVeigh, who is routinely mischaracterized as "Christian", as if saying, as he did, that "Science is my religion", is solid proof for being a follower of Christ).

One WaPo columnist, Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, lectures, "Christians are often reluctant to see these connections between their religion and extreme violence." That's a mighty big claim to make (is she speaking for every single Christian group, denomination, church, in existence?); it's also rather convenient considering that it's one thing for a solitary madman to wrap himself in a particular flag/creed/manifeso and quite another to have religious/social movements directed by a specific theology. The latter, when it comes to Christianity and terrorism, doesn't exist. Tellingly, Thistlethwaite describes as "supremacist" the belief that "Christianity is the 'only' truth..." In other words, if you believe (as I do) that Christianity is the one true religion, you are a potential terrorist. And how many people were killed, say, in the 20th century, by those believing in the uniqueness of Christianity? (Answer: few to none.) And how many were killed by those insisting that religion—especially orthodox Christianity—be surpressed, denounced, and even destroyed? (Answer: tens of millions). For what it's worth.

Finally, I grew up in western Montana as a Fundamentalist (we called ourselves "born-again Christians") and my father is a gunsmith and a gunmaker. Not once did I hear anything about violence or bloodshed being the answer to any problem, with the possible exception of an act of self-defense. We believed that murder is murder—whether in the form of abortion, an act of rage, or a premeditated anti-government shooting spree. Why? Because we took very seriously the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, and so forth. And so I was taught, without exception, that the taking of innocent life is an evil in the sight of God. Period. No exceptions.

So it is more than a little frustrating to read that a man who, at most, considered himself culturally "Christian" while rejecting essential Christian beliefs and a basic tenet of Christian morality ("Thou shalt not murder!") is somehow the poster child of right-wing Christian fundamentalism. As Matthew Schmalz rightly notes, "Breivik's vision is a Christianity without Christ." And Christianity without Christ is, in a word, anti-Christ. It is a Satanic parody of the truth, which always leads to some sort of violence, either physical or spiritual. Breivik was, it seems safe to say, a madman consumed by fear, hatred, and bigotry who, rather than pursuing peace and upholding order, opened the door to destruction and hell and stepped through to the other side.