Two days ago, a gentleman in Norway blew up a government building and then shot a large number of people at a youth camp that was hosting an event organised by the ruling political party. The final death toll was in the region of 90. I am sure that I speak for everyone who reads this when I say that our thoughts and sympathies are with the Norwegian people in these dark and tragic days.
In the initial news reports, journalistic speculation naturally lead to discussions of Islamic fundamentalism. After all, we have been conditioned for a decade to believe that when something is blowing up, shadowy Arab people cannot be far away. Within hours, however, Norwegian police notified the world that the suspect taken into custody, one Anders Behring Breivik, was a Christian fundamentalist.
Collectively, right-wing political pundits all over the Western world had the same thought: Awkward!
To me, this poses an interesting question. Is this person’s faith relevant to his outrageous deed? Harris and Klebold were avid computer gamers. The media made a meal of this at the time but it turned out to be irrelevant to those attacks. Should we regard the Norwegian tragedy as another evil deed facilitated by religion?
Without hearing from the suspect himself, it is impossible to be sure. However, in general terms, I believe the answer is both “yes” and “no”.
If I were asked whether his Christian fundamentalism caused the massacre, I would have to go with “No.” It is grossly unfair to the overwhelming majority of peaceful Christians out there to declare their faith responsible for this evil deed. Unfortunately, the politically convenient precedent of blaming Islam for the acts of a violent minority of Islamists has already been set, so I suspect that some Christian groups will experience unpleasant consequences as a result of these events. In reality, however, millions of people all over the world believe in Jesus without going on insane, murderous rampages. Even if Breivik himself tells the court that the voice of John the Baptist in his head told him to do it, I would still not blame his Christianity. Even for an atheist, it is too easy – too convenient – to blame religion without knowing all of the facts.
I believe that Breivik is just crazy. He killed all these people because he is crazy, and my opinion is that he was a Christian fundamentalist because he is crazy. There is a part of his faith that lead directly to his deeds but that has nothing to do with Christians. It is his Religionist Fundamentalism that is to blame.
Surprising and illogical things
Religions, in general, require people to believe surprising and illogical things. I think that the vast majority of religious people choose to believe a watered down version of their faith in which they ignore some of the logical problems and fill the resultant gaps in with their own theology, more appropriate to their daily lives. Then you get the Litteralists, a small minority that interprets the tennets of their faith literally while being fully aware of the fact that they seem illogical. These people often spend a lot of time in study groups, grappling to reconcile their faith with their daily lives. Finally, you get a small group within the Litteralists who are the dangerous True Believers. These people respond to the contradiction between faith and daily life by turning off their logical filters and believing wholeheartedly in whatever their scriptures and their religious leaders tell them.
Therein lies the problem. Once you have crossed the line of turning off your logic and personal accountability for your beliefs and actions, it is a simple matter to do it again. Put another way, “Once you go whack, you can’t go back.” Antisocial viewpoints relating to religion, politics or, as seems to be the case with Breivik, a mixture of the two can express themselves with no behavioural filter because you have disengaged your sense of responsibility for your own actions and vested it in a Higher Power, or a Greater Good.
Just like in the far less tragic example of noted Religionist, Stephen Jay Gould and his Heads, it is easy, if not inevitable, to express your personal convictions in an irrational and subconscious way when, in fact, you should be expressing something else.
Then you get what we had last week.
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