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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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?