At least 76 people are dead after Anders Behring Breivik massacred campers on an island off the coast of Oslo, Norway.
Finally, the media has a face and a name for making its heretofor unjustified claim of moral equivalency between conservative Christianity and Islam. Religion may be fine as long as it’s private, and you don’t really believe the key teachings of any one in particular. In any case, those who think they need to act on their confessional convictions in daily life—much less encourage other people to embrace them—are on the path to terrorism. Finally, we can reassure ourselves that Islam is not the problem; it’s “Christian fundamentalism.”
But for anyone interested in the facts of the case, the secularist narrative has lost its poster-boy. In an on-line manifesto, Breivik makes it clear that he is not a “fundamentalist Christian.” He prefaces one comment with, “If there is a God…” and says that science should always trump religion. So in terms of religious convictions, he sounds more like Richard Dawkins than Jerry Falwell. Yet, unlike Dawkins, Breivik pines for the “good ‘ol days” of Christendom, especially the crusades. “Regarding my personal relationship with God, I guess I’m not an excessively religious man. I am first and foremost a man of logic. However, I am a supporter of a monocultural Christian Europe…”
The nineteenth century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche shrewdly observed that in his day the bourgeois elites of Europe wanted the fruit of Christianity (i.e., moral culture) without the tree itself (i.e., the actual doctrine and practice). Breivik is not a poster-boy for “Christian fundamentalism,” but the fulfillment of Nietzsche’s prophecy. It’s one thing to confuse the kingdom of Christ with the kingdoms of this age, but we need a new category besides “fundamentalism” for the secular faith in “Christendom” without Christ.
A native of Houston, Texas, Todd served as youth pastor in churches in Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma.
Todd was called as the first pastor of Metro East Baptist Church in September of 1999. In November 2008 Todd became the Teaching Pastor of Church of the Saviour in Wayne, Pennsylvania.
Following a call to the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), Todd became the Lead Pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Harrisonburg, VA in August of 2013.
He is a graduate of Southwest Baptist University and Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Todd and his wife, Karen, have been married since 1990 and have three children: Kate, Ryan, and Matthew.
"Therefore the Christ who is grasped by faith and who lives in the heart is the true Christian righteousness, on account of which God counts us righteous and grants us eternal life."
Martin Luther
"The Gospel is sheer good tidings, not demand but promise, not duty but gift."
No comments:
Post a Comment