During this week of remembrance of the 10th Anniversary of 9/11, we offer this article written in response to the Oslo tragedy this past July. In light of 7/7 and the various wars of our age, there are difficult questions that continue to need careful thought as we seek to create societies that are open and free for each citizen. Feel free to pass it on to others for comments and discussion.
REFLECTIONS FROM THE NORWAY BOMBINGS
When news broke of a terrorist attack in Oslo, Norway, our thoughts immediately went to our friends there who we know as friends of the Reconciliation Walk. Their organization in Oslo hosts and facilitates relationships between young Arab and Israeli political and cultural leaders (government, arts and music.) The Norwegian founder of this work teaches regularly in our school of Reconciliation and Justice in London, and our students work with the Norwegian team as part of their practical outreach.
As news of the bombing and massacre made headlines across the world, there was immediate speculation about two possible Muslim perpetrators, one of whom is the Kurdish leader of Ansar-al-Islam, a Kurdish Islamic fundamentalist organization akin to Al-Qaeda. This reaction was wide-spread, voiced by all the major news networks and disseminated through online newspaper editions within hours. Moreover the speculation was complex: Experts opined at length on the subtle probabilities of which Muslim group was most likely responsible. (1)
However, it was clear within hours that the reflex to blame a Muslim was misguided – the perpetrator was a Norwegian and a defender of Christian civilization. This reminded us of the Oklahoma City bombing. Then too, there was speculation about Muslims, when in fact the bombing was conducted by Timothy McVeigh, an apocalyptic-minded American who was affiliated with the Christian Identity movement.
Among Breivik’s statements the week before the bombing he invoked the authority of a pro-Christian and anti-Muslim God, and described himself as a Christian Crusader:
“Clearly, this is not a pacifist God we serve,” he says. “It’s God who teaches our hands to war and our fingers to fight. Over and over again throughout the Old Testament, His people are commanded to fight with the best weapons available to them at that time.”
“The biggest threat to Europe is the cultural Marxist/multiculturalist political doctrine of ‘extreme egalitarian emotionalism,’” Breivik wrote, “This type of political stance involves destroying Christendom, the Church, our European cultures and identities and opening up our borders to Islamic colonization.” He also characterized himself as a Crusader knight. (2)
No doubt thinking he’d be killed in the assault, Breivik left a video behind where he proclaimed: “Celebrate us, the martyrs of the conservative revolution, for we will soon dine in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
It is difficult for many of us to think of any terrorist as a Christian. Fox commentator Bill O’Reilly reacted to reports of Brievik’s right-wing and Christian connections by declaring that it was “impossible” for the bomber to be a Christian. Others at FOX News denounced the appropriation of the term “right-wing” to describe Breivik. Fair enough.
Then perhaps it is a good time to remind ourselves that the vast majority of Muslims do not accept any form of terror as legitimate Muslim behavior, either. Meeting and talking with hundreds of Muslims in many different countries, not one of our team can recall meeting someone among normal every-day Muslims who would agree that Osama bin Laden represented a valid Islamic faith. There certainly are Muslims who did endorse Osama bin Laden – but they are a small minority, just as these Christian terrorists are a minority.
Terrorists from Christian, Muslim or Jewish backgrounds have much in common. They generally have a millenarian mind-set. Their reasoning is that a measure of violence now – even if it injures and kills innocents – is justified by the good that will come from God’s reign (which they will bring into being.)
Breivik, McVeigh, abortion clinic bombers and Temple Mount conspirators, similar to Osama bin Laden, may or may not be devout members of the Christian or Muslim civilizations they claim to protect. Breivik and McVeigh distanced themselves from active Christianity after their arrests. Yet they still found it necessary to cloak their endeavors in Biblical language and religious symbols. It does not take much research to uncover Christian confessions and a network of like-minded Christians who share their violent ideology. In their own minds they are Christians at least in so far as they are proponents of an embattled Christendom, and their world-view is shared and supported by more than a few devoutly practicing Christians who vicariously wage war through individuals like them via the networks and ideologies to which they all subscribe. (3)
How should we respond when religious terror strikes?
The common response to Islamic terror was wide-spread anger and calls for retaliation against “them.” Already after Breivik’s attack there is a discernible difference. There is outrage and grief. There is some anger too, but it is not the same collective response “let’s go after them.” Instead there is the assumption that Breivik is an isolated evil or that he is simply crazy. Whereas when there is a Muslim perpetrator, it is usually understood to be representative of the Muslim community. Why the difference?
Both reactions should be challenged. It is not correct to think in terms of the Muslim community when Islamic terror strikes and neither is it accurate to automatically dismiss non-Muslim terror as an isolated act of insanity. Usually there is a broader context that is composed of a perverted subset of the religious community involved. (Of course sometimes it might be a crazy Muslim, Jew or Christian – the point is that the assumption should not be automatic, it should be rational.)
Therefore it is important to acknowledge that Breivik was part of a movement. It might not be an organized terror cell, but it is at least an Internet-based network of Christian civilization ideologues that support and encourage one another using Christian language, in much the same way that extremist Islamic ideologies are perpetuated through the same mechanism.(4)
There is nothing new about aberrant Christian violence. Historically, it is exemplified most dramatically by the Crusades, when Christian civilization visited atrocities upon Muslims and Jews (and unacceptable Christians.) If like McVeigh, the Crusaders were not what today’s Church-going Christians consider Born Again, they nonetheless herded Jewish women and children into the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem and burned it down. They did this in the defense of Christian civilization while spouting the Old Testament, much like Breivik. It is remarkable that Osama bin Laden and the Oslo bomber defined themselves in terms of the Crusades. It remains the relational paradigm for Christians and Muslims (and many Jewish people too.) (5)
If the Crusades are an archetype, then the Reconciliation Walk suggests a redemptive approach to the eruption of religious violence.
The Reconciliation Walk explored a model response to religious violence during a project which marked the 900th anniversary of the First Crusade. Participants in the project apologized for the Crusaders’ atrocities against Eastern Christians, Jews and Muslims, while reaffirming the Gospel.
The apology was meant to redefine the Crusade reference point in a way that was both redemptive and emphatically Christian. It was an apology, but not apologetic for Christ and the Gospel:
Nine hundred years ago, our forefathers carried the name of Jesus Christ in battle across the Middle East. Fueled by fear, greed and hatred, they betrayed the name of Christ by conducting themselves in a manner contrary to His wishes and character. The Crusaders lifted the banner of the Cross above your people. By this act they corrupted its true meaning of reconciliation, forgiveness and selfless love.
On the anniversary of the first Crusade we also carry the name of Christ. We wish to retrace the footsteps of the Crusaders in apology for their deeds and in demonstration of the true meaning of the Cross. We deeply regret the atrocities committed in the name of Christ by our predecessors. We renounce greed, hatred and fear, and condemn all violence done in the name of Jesus Christ.
Where they were motivated by hatred and prejudice, we offer love and brotherhood. Jesus the Messiah came to give life. Forgive us for allowing His name to be associated with death. Please accept again the true meaning of the Messiah’s words:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor”.
Rather than deny the warped Christian motivation of the Crusaders or a modern-day McVeigh, we can acknowledge and refute it while making the true claims of the Christian faith clear.
When Christians confront millenarian violence committed by those from their own community, it is a means of publicly calling Muslims to do the same thing. It is a means of clarifying what the Gospel really proclaims and it is a means of calling for clarity from Muslims: Where does your faith stand on the issue of militancy and what does it promise?
Fine if Bill O’Reilly says it is impossible for a Christian do these things. But then we should accept similar disavowals by Muslims. Sure, there are Muslims who endorse terror. And there are Christians who endorse terror. Saying it is impossible for them to be Christians and Muslims is true in terms of each community’s faith – at least by degrees. But that doesn’t solve the problem that the terrorists claim to defend our faith’s community. The ideology of Islamic and Christian civilizations at war lends itself to some terrorizing others in the name of those civilizations, and we must take responsibility for our own.
Our response could be to seek out Muslims who are scandalized by Islamic terror and embrace them, saying, “We understand. We have the same problem!” It is not a display of Christian weakness, and it does not water down our faith to take this approach. Many Christians are afraid that if Muslims and Christians are seen to have the same problems with militancy that this is somehow a betrayal of Christian faith. It is not.
Jews, Christians and Muslims do have a lot in common. A Christian does not have to confess Islam to acknowledge that nonetheless, Islam and Christianity (and Judaism) come from the same Abrahamic tradition and share a common temptation to pervert the promise of Abraham. We suffer the same temptation to violence. We are prone to think we can take history into our hands, to hasten a redemptive end through means that are the antithesis of redemption. We can help each other by taking responsibility for own and by calling all to the greatest test of faith, the vision of a kingdom of peace and welfare without end.
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(1) The Washington Post, 07/22/2011, “Attack initial speculation centered on Kurdish group” This report is typical, although the television reports were more animated. Comedian Stephen Colbert’s farcical commentary is actually a good overview of the coverage: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/393042/july-25-2011/norwegian-muslish-gunman-s-islam-esque-atrocity
(2) Oslo Deputy Police Chief Roger Andresen was quoted shortly after Brievik’s arrest saying, “He describes himself as a Christian, leaning toward right-wing Christianity, on his Facebook page.”
(3) Timothy McVeigh refused to discuss his beliefs in depth, and when questioned gave contradictory and purposely misleading responses. His known affiliations prior to the bombing with for example, Christian Identity, and his avowed devotion to their favored apocalyptic literature, The Turner Diaries, makes him an exponent of extremist Christian ideology no matter what his concealed personal faith truly was.
(4) Other contemporary examples of “impossible” Christian terror:
The NLFT in Northern India is one of the ten most active terrorist organizations in the world, it is explicitly Christian (in an active religious sense, not merely culturally) and in addition to bombings and murders, the group forcibly converts captives to Christianity.
The Ku Klux Klan espoused the goal to “reestablish Protestant Christian values in America by any means possible” and Jesus as “the first Klansman.”
In the USA over the 30 years there have been at least 7 attempted murders of abortion providers, 41 bombings, 173 arsons and 94 attempted bombings all by confessing Christians.
It’s not rare in Christian history to see the same thing: The early American settlers were sure that they were justified in the deaths of the natives because of God’s bigger plan to spread His Kingdom through them. Even the plagues of disease which they brought, killing huge swaths of the Native American population, were looked on as the hand of God. The Inquisition… The Theodosian persecution of Jews… The Crusades… Apartheid… It’s not unusual for Christian eschatological views of God’s rule to turn into violence and oppression.
(5) Interesting too, that the First Crusade was provoked by Turkish incursions into Anatolia, while the historic slaughter of Jerusalem’s civilian population was borne by Jews and Arab Fatimid Muslims. There was not a Turk to be found there. Killing people who have not much to do with the vaunted threat against the embattled Christian/Muslim/Jewish civilization is a hallmark of religious terror. It certainly was again in the Oslo tragedy.