The Norway trial of Anders Breivik who has admitted to killing 77 people last July in a meticulously planned attack against immigration and multiculturalism deserves our attention.
In Breivik’s widely distributed 2083 manifesto, discovered after the killings, he describes how carefully he planned and trained for the attacks. According to court witnesses he says he would do it again if he had the chance. He is denying guilt for charges of terror and murder claiming ‘”These acts are based on goodness, not evil.” According to a BBC article he then added that he “had toned down his rhetoric out of concern for the victims.”
The article also says that Breivek believes that to be found legally insane would be a fate worse than death because that would diminish his credibility and the truth of the mission he was ready to die for.
One reason I think we need to weigh the issues of such a tragic case is that many followers of Christ are being influenced by misused conservative and liberal values that are fueling an international tide of of ethnic, racial, nationalistic, and religious violence.
Conservatism by nature resists change. Liberalism by nature encourages change. Both have their place. Both can support life. Both can be deadly. Both have access to large amounts of truth that can be harvested from the very nature of life as we know it.
Apart from Jesus’ example as the ultimate conservative-liberal we are likely to be seduced into either a conservative or liberal world view that is as evil as it is arguable.
The Eternal Son and Word of God shows us what needs to remain the same, and what needs to change. Yet he was not able to carry out his mission by finding good, enlightened people and arming them with swords. His kingdom of ultimate conservative and liberal values could not be established by conventional human strategies of war and resistance (John 18:36).
Maybe we can think together about what needs to change, what needs to remain the same, and how…
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