Christian Faith and the Oslo Massacre.

This is being composed a few days after the massacre of eight people in a bombing in downtown Oslo, Norway, and sixty-eight young people at a youth camp on an island not far from that city. The destructive bomb was made of fertilizer packed in a car near a government centre in the city. The explosion is thought to have been directed at the prime minister and also a cover for the more horrifying tragedy at the camp. The young people at the camp were attending a political training experience sponsored by the prime minister's Labour Party. He expected to give an address there the following day and was at home preparing his speech when the bomb exploded near his office.

 As far as is yet known, just one lone man, a 32 year old Norwegian, Anders Breivik, carried out both acts of extreme terrorism. In a long diatribe running to some 1500 pages online, the self-confessed perpetrator made the ostentatious claim that it was his Christian duty to do this. His intent was to shock his own country and all of Europe into the dangers of Islamist immigration. He wanted to initiate a revolution to purge Europe of an Islamic invasion. His rambling message defined himself as a 21^st century Crusader determined to form a new battalion of the Knights Templar to free Christian Europe from Islam.

When Breivik appeared in court six days after the massacre, he sought to have all the media broadcast his message. The court denied him the privilege. Later the presiding judge briefed the public on what had occurred at the hearing. He said that the accused had admitted committing the crimes, but pleaded not guilty. Breivik  believed his acts had been justified. He had to do it to save Norway and all of Europe from Islam. He regarded what he had done as an act of war.

Not since the invasion of the German Nazis during World War II has Norway been victimized by such horrendous events. Breivik’s lawyer has reported that his client is a “very cold person,” used drugs and is probably insane. It is not yet clear whether he will plead insanity when the trial begins.

Is this an expression of genuine faith or is it a form of excessive ideological fundamentalism only peripherally associated with the Christian tradition?

It is true that some intense forms of religious ecstasy can reach the borders of insanity. It is also true that a political or economic ideology can have the intensity of a religious conviction sanctioned by God. Many Christian fundamentalists in Europe, Australia and North America have expressed attitudes against Islamic immigrants closely related to those of Breivik. Multiculturalism and racism too can be as extreme and as religiously sanctioned as any Christian belief.

As the Norwegian Prime Minister said, it is not a crime to think or to have such destructive beliefs as Breivik. It is criminal to act on them.

Even Jesus was charged with being possessed by an evil spirit. Mark 3:21 reports that his family came looking for him because people were saying that he was out of his mind. In biblical terms, Breivik appears to be possessed of a demon. He perpetrated this tragedy by letting his demon drive him to mass murder.

In the Bible Joshua 8:1-29 cites an instance of mass murder that was also part of Israel’s ancient tradition. Was this really done at God’s bidding as related in the biblical record? (8:1, 18) The poet who composed the bitter verses of Psalm 137 certainly thought that it was God’s will for Israel to destroy its enemies Edom and Babylon after the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. These are difficult passages to interpret from a progressive point of view.

The God I believe in is compassionate and caring for all people, not vicious and immoral. It is wrong for anyone - Christian, Moslem or Jew - to turn from belief the bloodshed.

The people of Norway are in mourning. They have flooded the square in front of the national cathedral in Oslo with all sorts of memorials for the dead. The prime minister has avowed that this vicious act of madness will not deter his country from being an open, intercultural, interreligious democracy that welcomes people of all races and religious convictions. It is to be hoped – however faint that be that hope – that no other nation will suffer a similar act of terrorism.

Thanks be to God.

Wherewithal Begins

Often I use a stream of consciousness approach to whatever I write. It seems to get my creative juices flowing. That is why I gave this name to my third or fourth attempt to launch a regular blog. I habe no idea how long or how often I shall post an entry. To begin with I am going to enter some of the breif essays I have been adding to another blogsite where I post analyses to the Revised Common Lectionary for preachers and congregations to use as an introduction to the scripture lessons week by week. That website is owned by my friend of many years, David Keating, of Kingston,Ontario, Canada, known as Seems Like God (http://www.seemslikegod.org/). I commend it to you.

I make no apologies for writing chiefly on religious themes. That has been both my passion and my profession since the age of seventeen.

Here is a sample of those essays I referred to above. 

Stories Have Meaning.

Google the name of John Sadusky and you will find who this man is. Currently, he served as Distinguished Professor of Leadership at the Grenoble Graduate School of Business in France. He also lectures in marketing and intercultural management around the world. His blog of July 14, 2011 reads: “When I write or speak of a leader’s personal stories of identity, I am referring to the stories that reveal the core of the individual, that speak to such issues as ‘who I am’, ‘why I do what I do’, ‘what I believe’, ‘what I stand for’, or ‘where I am going in my life’.  We follow others because of who they are, and it is in the personal stories they tell that they reveal their true nature to us.”

We all remember that children’s hymn of long ago, “Tell me the stories of Jesus, I long to hear.” Many of us remember Jesus and believe in him because our earliest memories are of hearing those stories. The Bible is filled with stories. Many of them may be as much legendary or even as fictional as the Harry Potter series. But they have meaning for us because they reveal how the living and holy God made a difference in people’s lives and through them has changed the course of human history.

Stories of religious people are among the most powerful motivators of all our life experiences.  All humanity has similar experiences too, not just Christians. Our own stories of encounters with God are the only validation we need that God exists, however we may conceive that Transcendent Being to be.

I remember a boy of eight telling me how he had given his heart to Jesus. I may have been sceptical at the time because he was so young. I had no doubts when I later learned, long after I had left that community, how he had become a highly respected teacher, a faithful father and elder of his church.

Another man had lived the hard and dangerous life of a logger in the Canadian bush in the late 19^th century. All the work in those logging camps was done by hand in winter and the logs ridden down the wild waters of the northern rivers during the spring runoff. He later retired to a quiet farm life and raised a family. He made a meagre living in the sandy soil of his acreage.

His daughter called me to his beside as he was dying in the last days of a long life. As I sat listening intently he poured out his life story. He ended by saying, “It was a rough life at times. I did my best.” So I asked him gently, “And what do you think of Jesus?” He looked up at me from his pillow and murmured, “Without him I’m lost.” I was privileged to tell his story at his funeral service a few days later. Everybody at the service got the meaning and the message.

J.K. Rowling’s seven stories about the adventures of Harry Potter and his friends are now part of English literature and movie history. They made her a billionaire, the first person to earn that much solely by telling stories. An article in the current issue of The United Church Observer points out that these fantasies helped a generation of young people move through adolescence to the edges of maturity.
Rowlings’ stories had a religious influence that our church educational programs did not. That can be measured by the way they were attacked by sincere Christians, albeit of a conservative bent, who “decried the series’ sorcery and witchcraft.” Books were written “to prove its immorality, citing mortal sins like curfew breaking.”

The article’s author, a journalism and English literature student a St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick, summed up the effect of Rowlings’ stories this way: “Reality is coming. We are moving into adulthood.  But the good news is, we can take Harry Potter with us. The magic doesn’t have to end with our childhood. The quest for the seemingly impossible, the hope that good will triumph, the desire for something beyond ourselves and a world that is more than we ever dared imagine is the challenge of Harry Potter. And that doesn’t end with the final credits.”

The stories of Jesus, his apostles and Israel’s more ancient patriarchs and prophets have lasted much longer than Harry Potter will because they convey the truth that will last forever.