Norway Mass Murder - Demonizing Christianity

Demonizing Christianity

Bill O'Reilly
Thursday, Jul 28, 2011

The front page headline in the New York Times last Monday was stunning: "AS HORRORS EMERGE, NORWAY CHARGES CHRISTIAN EXTREMIST."

That would be Anders Behring Brevik, the 32-year-old mass murderer who took at least 76 innocent lives apparently because he doesn't like Muslims living in Europe.

But why would the Times brand Brevik as a Christian? The killer is not attached to any church, has no history of Christian activity, has openly criticized the Protestant philosophy, and has committed acts counter to all Christian teaching.

Defenders of the headline point to a Norwegian police officer describing Brevik as a Christian and the maniac's desire to be a member of the "Knights of Templar," a medieval society that avenged anti-Christian behavior.

Perhaps the New York Times might watch out for the Knights.

According to reporting done by the website NewsBusters, the Times wasn't so quick to brand the men who killed 52 people in the London subway back in 2005. The Times story on that terror incident described the situation this way: "The plot was carried out by a sleeper cell of homegrown extremists rather than highly trained terrorists exported to Britain."

Homegrown? The four London killers were all Muslim extremists, yet the Times avoided the religious label.

If the paper was consistent, it would have described Brevik as "homegrown," right? The guy was born and raised in Norway.

So why are the New York Times and some other liberal media playing the "Christian extremist" card?

Two reasons. First, some on the left want to make an equivalency argument between Muslim terrorism and other kinds of violent acts. The Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh, was often branded "a right wing terrorist" in the media. Terrorism is terrorism, the analysis goes; it's not fair to constantly emphasize Muslim terrorism without acknowledging the others. Besides, bad men like George W. Bush overhype the Muslim threat and use it to do evil things like invade Iraq.

The second reason is purely political. The left well understands that Christian opposition to things like abortion, gay marriage, and drug legalization makes those liberal causes more difficult to achieve. Thus, anything that diminishes Christianity is fair game to be promoted. Every newsworthy sin committed by a Christian is highlighted with a sneering reference to hypocrisy. Any whiff of Christian intolerance is celebrated in the press.

Anders Brevik did not kill in the name of Jesus. He was not a member of a Christian-based al Qaeda-like group. He was not funded by Iran or enabled by Pakistan. He is simply a murderer, a man devoid of any spiritual conscience. A direct descendent of Cain.

Yet, somehow, Brevik is now a member of a peace-loving, compassionate group, at least according to some media. He's a Christian.

Who knew?

Let's not forget Major Hassan.

I read the a Guardian article on this guy that included the quote:

Another significant event [for Breivik] was being baptised into the Protestant church of "his own free will" at the age of 15. More recently, however, he had expressed his disgust at his own church. "Today's Protestant church is a joke," he wrote in an online post in 2009. "Priests in jeans who march for Palestine and churches that look like minimalist shopping centres. I am a supporter of an indirect collective conversion of the Protestant church back to the Catholic."

I'm only posting that because openly criticizing 'the protestant philosophy' doesn't necessary mean you criticize all Christianity. Odd O'Reilly would say that given that I believe he was raised a Catholic. I do think O'Reilly has a good point in that the religious element to this massacre isn't as clear cut as it was say in the 7/7 bombings. His far-right ideology was tied up with religion, but he didn't explicitly kill in the name of religion, and he doesn't appear to have had a high degree of religious activity.

But I saw O'Reilly talking this line on his show the other day, and his line of argument that you cannot be called 'a Christian extremist' if you do not practice 'Christian values' (I'm paraphrasing) was really, really weak. If we took that argument at face value it would mean any religion would be safeguarded from being associated with terror or violence, because the perpetrator of such violence would no longer be considered as a member of that religion. There would be no 'religious extremism' per se. Obviously, to turn O'Reilly's argument against him, it could be argued that the 9/11 hijackers were not 'Islamic extremists' because they did not abide to 'Islamic values'. These people have their own warped personal religious beliefs (to some extent everyone's beliefs are such) that do not accord to their wider religious communities, but if they do kill with clear religious motivations I still think it is reasonable to call them "[Religious adjective] extremists".

The rest of his points were more substantial though. I wonder how much we can read into a single NYT headline, but maybe he has a point there too.

But the 9/11 guys were practicing their warped vision of Islam. This Norway dude wasn't.

I was baptized when I was a baby. I was confirmed when I was, I think, fourteen. I don't practice religion. I don't go to church. I'm not an atheist either. I just don't practice or abide. I just live, you could say. So, given all that, and I go out and do what this guy did last week, would I be labeled a Christian? If I said that Muslims were destroying my country but wasn't a practicing Christian, am I a Christian extremist?

TexasBlue wrote:But the 9/11 guys were practicing their warped vision of Islam.

And if you've studied the Qur'an and the Haddith, you'd realize that the 9/11 terrorists weren't actually practicing a "warped" version of Islam, but were indeed taking an extremely fundamentalist approach to their religion.

That's the problem with Islam. It has no moderating influence. The Old Testament was representative of a very violent religion, but then this guy Jesus came along and Christianity was born and the New Testament and this served as a moderating force on what was otherwise a violent religion. We got "turn the other cheek" and all that.

Islam has no such moderating force. It is a religion literally locked in time. So it is quite safe to say that there is no way that one can credibly say that Brevik was "practicing Christian values" in his depraved act.

It is equally safe to say that the 9/11 terrorists were practicing a very fundamentalist version of Islam, unlike millions of their fellow followers of Islam (who do not adhere to the more extreme aspects of this religion).

As a note, Islam is actually not just a religion. Islam is an entire way of life and covers all aspects of life, religion, education, business, politics, justice, society, everything. There is no separation of church and state with Islam - they are one in the same. Just read the "constitutions" of any Islamic state, you'll see what I mean.

bigger_guns_nearby wrote:I read the a Guardian article on this guy that included the quote:

Another significant event [for Breivik] was being baptised into the Protestant church of "his own free will" at the age of 15. More recently, however, he had expressed his disgust at his own church. "Today's Protestant church is a joke," he wrote in an online post in 2009. "Priests in jeans who march for Palestine and churches that look like minimalist shopping centres. I am a supporter of an indirect collective conversion of the Protestant church back to the Catholic."

I'm only posting that because openly criticizing 'the protestant philosophy' doesn't necessary mean you criticize all Christianity. Odd O'Reilly would say that given that I believe he was raised a Catholic. I do think O'Reilly has a good point in that the religious element to this massacre isn't as clear cut as it was say in the 7/7 bombings. His far-right ideology was tied up with religion, but he didn't explicitly kill in the name of religion, and he doesn't appear to have had a high degree of religious activity.

But I saw O'Reilly talking this line on his show the other day, and his line of argument that you cannot be called 'a Christian extremist' if you do not practice 'Christian values' (I'm paraphrasing) was really, really weak. If we took that argument at face value it would mean any religion would be safeguarded from being associated with terror or violence, because the perpetrator of such violence would no longer be considered as a member of that religion. There would be no 'religious extremism' per se. Obviously, to turn O'Reilly's argument against him, it could be argued that the 9/11 hijackers were not 'Islamic extremists' because they did not abide to 'Islamic values'. These people have their own warped personal religious beliefs (to some extent everyone's beliefs are such) that do not accord to their wider religious communities, but if they do kill with clear religious motivations I still think it is reasonable to call them "[Religious adjective] extremists".

The rest of his points were more substantial though. I wonder how much we can read into a single NYT headline, but maybe he has a point there too.

that's the whole point on him killing of Norway's political and religiously interrogated young.. Christians are NOT standing up to Islam.. Labour party members are refusing to protect the nation.. Only with such a shock will Christians wake up and fight for the true faith.. Only with such a shock will the Labour party wake up to the Muslims in their mist.. Only with such a shock will the people of Norway wake up to the fact they are losing their country to Islam.

dblboggie wrote:As a note, Islam is actually not just a religion. Islam is an entire way of life and covers all aspects of life, religion, education, business, politics, justice, society, everything. There is no separation of church and state with Islam - they are one in the same. Just read the "constitutions" of any Islamic state, you'll see what I mean.

So was Christianity... until the Christians grow up and grow into to all the different countries we have today... remember Christians have a few hundred years head start.. so I don't think it's right to blame Muslims for not being as advanced as say the Christians of Norway

cable2+1 wrote:So was Christianity... until the Christians grow up and grow into to all the different countries we have today... remember Christians have a few hundred years head start.. so I don't think it's right to blame Muslims for not being as advanced as say the Christians of Norway

Ain't 1,400 years enough time? I mean, really.

cable2+1 wrote:So was Christianity... until the Christians grow up and grow into to all the different countries we have today... remember Christians have a few hundred years head start.. so I don't think it's right to blame Muslims for not being as advanced as say the Christians of Norway

TexasBlue wrote:Ain't 1,400 years enough time? I mean, really.

well 1,400 years was NOT long enough for Christains to grow up.. was it ?

I think his manifesto was patterned after the Knights Templar...well, as "patterned" as a schizophrenic gets