The Oslo bomber, Anders Behring Breivik, was a self-appointed Knight Templar tasked with freeing Europe from the scourge of ”˜cultural Marxism’ and Islam, according to his 1,518-page manifesto posted on Stormfront.org, a white supremacist internet forum.
Initially tagged as a “Christian fundamentalist” by Norwegian police, Breivik’s apologia shows only a passing concern with religious belief, but professes a fanatical faith in European culture.
On 22 July, the 32-year-old Norwegian detonated a car bomb in central Oslo, killing at least eight people. He then proceeded by ferry boat to Utoya Island where he shot and killed 68 people attending a youth camp organized by the Labour Party.
I have come across various attributions of Breivik’s Christianity. One newspaper said that he described himself as a ‘conservative Christian’ on his Face Book page (which had already been taken down). This article makes it seem as if the moniker came from the police. This is understandable given the extracts quoted. But these same extracts show that the man did not consider himself a believing Christian but a cultural one – using his own definition of Christian culture.
The key to the Oslo bombing and massacre was not hate. It was/is mental illness.