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.

Some thoughts on truth and fraudulence in Christian cinema

Two excellent articles considering an important question — Why do Christian movies suck? — have appeared recently.  The first was written by Salon critic Andrew O’Hehir, while the response was posted on SixSeeds.tv by Timothy Dalrymple.  As with just about everything else in my blog, this is a topic I’d planned to cover at some point, and others beat me to it, so now’s as good a time as any to say my piece.  I need to emphasize before going further that I greatly enjoyed both articles, and there is much I agree with in both.  The wit and insight on display suggests that O’Hehir and Dalrymple would be prime candidates for a televised roundtable.  (Make it happen, people!)  I don’t feel like recapitulating each article, so before you read further, please read both articles so we can bite right into the meat.