Breivik and temptations to violence

While I was station-surfing the radio on the way to work on Friday, I caught about five minutes of American conservative Michael Medved’s show.  His guest was Susan Brooks Thislethwaite, who writes a religion column for The Washington Post.  The subject was her column, “When Christianity becomes lethal,” a response to the Anders Breivik massacre, and Medved specifically highlighted the following paragraph:

When I consider the theological perspectives that “tempt” some Christians to justify hatred and even violence against others, such as, in this case in Norway, the following perspectives seem especially prevalent: 1) making supremacist claims that Christianity is the “only” truth; 2) holding the related view that other religions are not merely wrong, but “evil” and “of the devil”; 3) being highly selective in the use of biblical literalism, for example ignoring the justice claims of the prophets and using biblical texts that seem to justify violence; 4) identifying Christianity with a dominant race and/or nation; 5) believing that violence is divinely justified to “cleanse” or “purify” as in a “holy war”; and 6) believing the end of the world is at hand.

Why Breivik was not a Christian

Timothy Dalrymple has blogged a concise deconstruction of Anders Breivik’s “Christianity”  over at Philosophical Fragments, and while his post is more immediately inspired by the recent atrocity, the substance of Dalrymple’s insights will remain relevant far beyond it.  Not surprisingly, I didn’t even address the question of whether or not Breivik really was a Christian in my post yesterday.  (Glaring oversights are a particular specialty of mine.)  Thankfully, Dr. Dalrymple has eloquently addressed this question by expanding upon three simple points, which I quote verbatim.

Will conservative Christians finally stop pretending…

…that Muslim jihadits are the only nutballs who commit mass murder?  (My guess is: “No, they will not.”)  As reported in The New York Times (and numerous other news agencies), Anders Behring Breivik is currently the sole suspect in the bombing and shootings in Norway yesterday.  According to the press reports, he identifies himself as a conservative Christian, and he has a record of making anti-Muslim statements.  I haven’t yet read his manifesto, and frankly, I don’t know if I’ll have the stomach for it.  I am not alone in condemning such malicious and despicable actions, and I certainly pray that those who survived the violence are able to cope in the best possible way.