Pat Buchanan, the former presidential candidate and now-pundit whose writings appear in numerous conservative outlets and who is a frequent talking head on MSNBC, and Bryan Fischer, the American Family Association’s radio host and Director of Issue Analysis, have declared their sympathy with the overriding cultural claims that undergird 2083: A European Declaration of Independence. They condemn Anders Behring Breivik’s brutal violence and question his Christian bona fides, but accept his frame of a cultural clash that threatens Western civilization…. While Fischer condemns the place to which Breivik takes his critique of “multiculturalism,” Fischer himself is an ardent critic of what he has called “mindless political correctness and multiculturalism which controls the thinking of the elites,” a framing that is familiar both to readers of Breivik and observers of the American Christian right.
One of the more amusing things (if it’s even appropriate to be thinking in those terms, I suppose) to come out of the tragic and senseless attacks in Norway are the lengths Conservatives in this country have gone to in order to avoid referring to Anders Behring Breivik as a “Christian terrorist.” At the top of the list are several Fox News talking heads, who have been both vehement and indignant in their spirited assertions that no one who believes in Jesus Christ could POSSIBLY be capable of such senseless slaughter of innocents. Jon Stewart did a wonderful job of taking on and calling out the hypocrites at FNC last week. His take on it is as funny as it is thoroughly disturbing. There really are talking heads out there, primarily in the Right-wing media bubble, who will argue in all seriousness that Breivik couldn’t have possibly been a Christian…because no practicing (White) Christian would ever engage in such senseless violence against innocent civilian targets.
Oh, really? Well, how about we just take a stroll through recent American history, shall we? I could regale you with a VERY long list, but I think I can make my point with a few names that I think most of y’all will probably recognize:
Scott Roeder: Murdered Dr. George Tiller at Tiller’s church in Wichita, KS. Roeder considered himself a member of The Army of God).
Rev. Paul Hill, a Presbyterian minister: Murdered a doctor and his body guard at an abortion clinic in Pensacola, FL, in 1994. Rev. Hill was executed by the State of Florida in 2003.
Timothy McVeigh: Bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people. McVeigh was executed by the Federal Government in 2001. McVeigh religious motives, while somewhat vague, have been the subject of significant debate. His Christianity may be open to question, but that fact that he was White is indisputable.
Eric Robert Rudolph: Responsible for a series of bombing across the southern US from 1996-1998, was a Roman Catholic who are various times claimed to be engaged in “the war to end this holocaust” (in reference to abortion).
I could go on, of course, but I think I’ve made my point. Those who claim that religiously-based violent extremism/terrorism is the sole purview of evil, swarthy Islamofascists are as dishonest as they are disingenuous. I suppose one could parse the definition of “terrorism” if one so chooses, but if we’re talking about politically-motivated random violence directed at innocent civilians, White Christians are every bit as capable as swarthy Islamofascists…or anyone else.
There are those who would take serious umbrage at even the barest implication that Breivik was a Christian. Never mind that Breivik self-identified as a Christian on his Facebook page. Of course, then the question becomes who qualifies as a “real” Christian? Breivik, as far as anyone can tell, belonged to no church, nor did he evidently ever frequent Sunday morning church services. This, in the mind of those so inclined, serves as conclusive proof that Breivik wasn’t a “real” Christian, and therefore no tie exists being Christianity and Breivik’s savagery.
Oh, but there’s this tiny little detail: Breivik supported a reconstitued Knights Templar dedicated to winning a holy war against Islam in the name of Christianity.
Yeah, well…other than that, Breivik absolutely wasn’t a Christian, right??
Look, no reasonable person is going to blame Breivik’s murderous savagery on the teachings of Jesus Christ. What I find so comical, though, are the number of Right-wing pundits who have their panties all in a wad because they think that “Liberals” or “The Left” are going to use this tragedy to their advantage in their battle against all things Christian (It ain’t easy being part of an oppressed majority, knowhutimean??). Nothing of the sort is going to happen of course, but how about we just lose the hypocrisy and own up to the reality that terrorism is not necessarily a theological construct? When it is, though, Muslim fanatics don’t exactly hold a monopoly on the franchise. Denying this just confirms what most of us have long suspected about Right-wing pundits, particularly those at Fox News Channel: their objectivity is non-existent, they wear their prejudice on their sleeves, and they never let truth, reality, or fact get in the way of smearing those they hate and fear.
Nice work if you can get it, eh??
