One Christian's Reflections on the Tragedy in Norway

By The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi
August 03, 2011

Excerpt:
Mr. Breivik is not a Christian—by his own admission. He has said that he does not believe in the Christian faith nor does he attend a Christian church. He does not even consider himself religious. He is, in fact, part of the great secular wave of Europe—people who combine an ardent secularism and a deep nihilism with a fascination for folk tales and cultural myths—in Mr. Breivik's case, the Vikings and Knights Templar. This combination is more about paganism than Christianity, more about secular folk religion than the religion of Jesus.

To put it bluntly, Mr. Breivik is a racist and a bigot who upholds a Scandinavian version of a master race—an ethnocentric superiority that views foreigners, and especially Muslims, as a virus to be eliminated. Whatever else his philosophy may be, it is NOT Christian.

Nor is Mr. Breivik a fundamentalist, if one means a Christian fundamentalist. I know some Christian fundamentalists, and none would ever consider murdering innocent people. The fundamentalists I know, mainly Mennonite, take the Sermon on the Mount literally, and therefore tend to be pacifists who turn the other cheek and seek to love their enemies, even the ones who have done them harm.

In stark contrast, Mr. Breivik believes in murdering his enemies (enemies in his own mind) rather than loving them.

Moreover, fundamentalist or not, no Christian would ever engage in such savage acts of murder. After all, the Bible is plain: “You shall not kill,” which has been interpreted to mean, “You shall not murder.” In other words, the intentional killing of innocent human life is never justifiable.  the rest