My friend Ray Pennings has written an insightful op-ed piece in The Globe and Mail that is worth reading: Don’t blame religion for Anders Breivik. An excerpt:
The crimes of which Anders Breivik stands accused don’t show how religion can inspire evil. Quite the contrary: They are proof positive that a Christ-less Christianity is a cultural construct that can’t bring the depth of relationship required to prevent the horrors that evil inspires. It doesn’t show how faith makes us evil – it shows only why we so badly need to be inspired by the social virtues propagated by its institutions.
July 28th, 2011 | 1:57 pm | #1
The problem is that a “Christ-less Christianity” is a cultural construct with great political power and use. Today many conservative Americans believe that a Judeo-Christian political-cultural tradition is something to promote as a secular good, a public contract of sorts. Even if it removes Christ from Christianity, it evangelizes the inherent goodness of his teachings.
“But still there’s no escaping his claim to cultural Christendom, and some will use it as evidence that religion is inherently dangerous.”
That depends on how you answer these difficult questions:
1) is “Christ-less” Christianity inherently dangerous?
2) Is the net affect of a “Christ-less” Christian cultural such that any secular good that may be gained is more than offset by the damage it causes?
July 28th, 2011 | 4:28 pm | #2
The first question that most commentators appear to ask with the Breivik case is who can I tar with guilt by association.
Much of the early commentary, such as the Frank Schaeffer piece referenced earlier on this blog, has no factual connection with anything that Breivk said or believed, nor has much of it been even remotely concerned with the truthfulness, as opposed to the usefulness.
July 28th, 2011 | 6:48 pm | #3
My impression is that Breivik was primarily motivated by nationalistic sentiments (which naturally includes a cultural-religious element).
The uncomfortable fact is not that Breivik shares our evangelical Christianity, but that so many (American) evangelical Christians share Breivik’s nationalist sentiments. That is, the nationalist sentiments plausibly motivating Breivik seem to flourish among American evangelicals (the very folks who tend to emphasize their personal relationships with Christ). This relationship between American evangelicals and nationalism has always struck me as curious, as I’d have expected spirit-filled Christians to be more inclined towards a kind of cosmopolitanism, like that defended by Nussbaum: http://bostonreview.net/BR19.5/nussbaum.php
I am curious to get Dr. Koyzis’s thoughts on this.
July 28th, 2011 | 9:30 pm | #4
JGY:
I’m tempted to refer you to my book, Political Visions and Illusions, where I have an entire chapter devoted to nationalism. I am no friend of nationalism, and I dislike seeing Christians getting caught up in it.
As I see it, we are bound by a number of overlapping allegiances, the highest of which is to God himself. Our other allegiances are relative to this. I cannot quite call myself a cosmopolitan, because I think there is much to be said for a kind of local patriotism that is more focussed than nationalism. (I am a native of the Great Lakes region, which happens to straddle a rather lengthy international political border.)
At the same time, we also owe loyalty to the larger body of Christ, which transcends human national communities. There is a profound sense in which we are at home with our fellow believers wherever they live. In this respect perhaps we can call ourselves cosmopolitan, as long as that cosmopolis is Augustine’s Civitas Dei. However, this does not cancel out our more proximate loyalties.
August 4th, 2011 | 8:42 pm | #5
I share JGY’s and Dr. Koyzis’ distaste for nationalism. The nationalism of what we’d call practicing evangelicals is, usually, circumscribed by the fact that they practice their faith and are not merely cultural driftwood that flows with the tides.
It’s the driftwood that concerns me more, though even the nationalism of active evangelicals can at times be a hindrance. Perhaps if our songbooks at church contained Psalm 52 to direct against all politicians as a profession, we wouldn’t be so inclined to entangle ourselves in what hinders. Psalms 2 and 14, among others, would also be good for this purpose.
The problem is that we’ve allowed our faith to become domesticated – in more ways than one.
August 5th, 2011 | 10:44 am | #6
Gary, you’ve provided a nice segue for me to beat the drum once more for singing the psalms in our liturgies. We’ve made entirely too much room for the syrupy and sentimental in worship, e.g. “I come to the garden alone. . .“
August 14th, 2011 | 8:25 pm | #7
Here’s my comparison between Breivik and a Christian who changed Norway for the better, in profound ways:
http://christthetao.blogspot.com/
After writing this, I discovered that the Norwegian missionary couple who led my wife to Christ, both grew up in churches deeply influenced by Hauge.
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