{"id":4850,"date":"2011-07-26T15:08:41","date_gmt":"2011-07-26T19:08:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=4850"},"modified":"2011-07-26T12:09:46","modified_gmt":"2011-07-26T16:09:46","slug":"washington-post-norway-killer-not-a-religious-christian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/washington-post-norway-killer-not-a-religious-christian","title":{"rendered":"Washington Post: Norway killer not a &#8220;religious Christian&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Self-confessed Norweigan mass-murder suspect Anders Behring Breivik calls himself a \u201ccultural Christian,\u201d writes Mathew N. Schmalz in the <em>Washington Post<\/em>&#8216;s &#8220;On Faith&#8221; section.<\/p>\n<p>Religious Christians, Breivik observes, have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, which\u00a0Breivik does not claim to\u00a0have, notes Schmalz, who is a professor of religious studies at the\u00a0College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>For Breivik, \u201cChristendom\u201d is a vehicle for preserving European self-identity and is not necessarily opposed to elements of \u201cpaganism\u201d such as Breivik\u2019s own \u201cOdnistic\/Norse\u201d heritage, even though the cross, he argues, has a greater symbolic power than Thor\u2019s hammer, Mj\u00f6lnir. In spite of this, the initiation ceremony Breivik envisages for \u201cKnights Templar\u201d has no cross, only a candle, sword, skull.<\/p>\n<p>The Christian history that Breivik seeks to reenact is not the passion of Jesus Christ, but the narrative of the Crusades. Breivik rhapsodizes about battles and lists the indulgences promises to Crusaders by Popes Urban II and Innocent III. Although he wishes that Benedict XVI would call Christendom to crusade, Breivik argues that the Roman Pontiff has been too accommodating to Islam and has thus betrayed the Church and Europe as a whole. The new Crusade will thus have to be initiated outside the authority of decadent institutional churches. Breivik\u2019s description of how this Crusade will transpire has exaggerated contours of a computer game-it\u2019s Valhalla via Warcraft.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Schmalz goes on to note that labeling Breivik a \u201cChristian terrorist\u201d is vague.\u00a0&#8220;Breivik\u2019s vision,&#8221; the professor writes,\u00a0&#8220;is a Christianity without Christ.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/on-faith\/post\/christian-terrorist-madman-how-do-we-understand-anders-behring-breivik\/2011\/07\/25\/gIQA7c6XYI_blog.html\" target=\"_blank\">CLICK HERE to read entire article<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Self-confessed Norweigan mass-murder suspect Anders Behring Breivik calls himself a \u201ccultural Christian,\u201d writes Mathew N. Schmalz in the Washington Post&#8216;s &#8220;On Faith&#8221; section. Religious Christians, Breivik observes, have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, which\u00a0Breivik does not claim to\u00a0have, notes Schmalz, who is a professor of religious studies at the\u00a0College of the Holy Cross in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,100,956],"tags":[1225,1221,2240],"class_list":["post-4850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian","category-commentary","category-washington-post-on-faith","tag-anders-behring-breivik","tag-norway","tag-washington-post-on-faith"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Washington Post: Norway killer not a &quot;religious Christian&quot;<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/washington-post-norway-killer-not-a-religious-christian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Washington Post: Norway killer not a &quot;religious Christian&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Self-confessed Norweigan mass-murder suspect Anders Behring Breivik calls himself a \u201ccultural Christian,\u201d writes Mathew N. Schmalz in the Washington Post&#8216;s &#8220;On Faith&#8221; section. Religious Christians, Breivik observes, have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, which\u00a0Breivik does not claim to\u00a0have, notes Schmalz, who is a professor of religious studies at the\u00a0College of the Holy Cross in&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/washington-post-norway-killer-not-a-religious-christian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-07-26T19:08:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-07-26T16:09:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Washington Post: Norway killer not a \"religious Christian\"","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/washington-post-norway-killer-not-a-religious-christian","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Washington Post: Norway killer not a \"religious Christian\"","og_description":"Self-confessed Norweigan mass-murder suspect Anders Behring Breivik calls himself a \u201ccultural Christian,\u201d writes Mathew N. Schmalz in the Washington Post&#8216;s &#8220;On Faith&#8221; section. Religious Christians, Breivik observes, have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, which\u00a0Breivik does not claim to\u00a0have, notes Schmalz, who is a professor of religious studies at the\u00a0College of the Holy Cross in&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/washington-post-norway-killer-not-a-religious-christian","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-07-26T19:08:41+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-07-26T16:09:46+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/washington-post-norway-killer-not-a-religious-christian","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/washington-post-norway-killer-not-a-religious-christian","name":"Washington Post: Norway killer not a \"religious Christian\"","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-07-26T19:08:41+00:00","dateModified":"2011-07-26T16:09:46+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/washington-post-norway-killer-not-a-religious-christian#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/washington-post-norway-killer-not-a-religious-christian"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/washington-post-norway-killer-not-a-religious-christian#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Washington Post: Norway killer not a &#8220;religious Christian&#8221;"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4850"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4876,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4850\/revisions\/4876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}