Was It A Christian Jihad In Norway? You Decide. Breivik's Video Looks Like Bryan Fischer Made It!

"One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests."           -posted by Anders Behring Breivik on Twitter


" Dam I would celebrate if this Viking sonuva bitch opened up that machine gun on a bunch of Muslims."

         - From Facebook wall of Anders Behring Breivik

Anders Behring Breivik and Timothy McVeigh: the parallels came dropping down like gumball-sized hailstones. The government building in Oslo was repeatedly compared to the Federal building in Oklahoma City. Both Breivik and McVeigh were clean-cut looking young men. Both men had an animosity towards the established government.


McVeigh's background, however, did not point to a particularly religious person, while Brievik's video (below) shows an obsession with the term of "Christian Soldier" and the Crusades. 


The video is exceptionally revealing and may be the only solid link to Breivik's motive - no matter what he says in his upcoming court date. It is unyielding in its hatred for Islam and Muslims. It features multiculturalism as the worst thing to happen to mankind because it will give way to a rising population of Islamists, thereby allowing them to eventually rule the world. It is arrogant in its righteousness. It paints himself as the only hope left. 


When you see it, you cannot help to think that it was written by an American who has voiced the same opinion every time: if Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association didn't write the script for the video, who did?




 

HIS SENTIMENTS EXACTLY

Bryan Fischer has once again proven that righteous arrogance breeds stupidity. His tweet makes him look just as bad as Anders Berhing Breivik is in its hatred for everything Muslim. It also insinuates his tolerance for violence. And putting the word Christian in quotes denotes a flaccid attempt at distancing himself from his obvious doppelganger. Millions of America's whitewashed public will be screaming "not me!" but no one will hear them from the din Fischer creates.   

Fischer will harp on the fact that, while almost everyone in Norway is baptized at birth, only 2% of country are regular church goers. Norway is the most secular country in Europe. We'll hear phrases not too unlike "getting what it deserves." Oh, others will chime in: Pat Robertson, Lou Engle, Franklin Graham, Cindy Jacobs, Rod Parsley to name a few. But no one will use Norway's tragedy like Fischer - a virtuoso of anti-Islamic hatred and intolerance; a hatred so embedded in America's psyche that media first-responders automatically assumed Muslims were involved in both the bombing and the massacre. And most of them sloughed off the possibility of an "apology" to the Muslim world and to Islam.

Another Case of Righteous Assassination?

At first another parallel seems weak, but given time, it grows: Byron Williams, who, almost EXACTLY ONE YEAR AGO (July 21, 2010) was discovered in an attempt to terrorize the Tides Foundation and the ACLU. At that time, broadcaster Glenn Beck was linked to the attempted massacre. Now, however, the Oslo/Utoya tragedy can be linked to aggressive evangelism that does nothing to control the religious intolerance it creates. 




It has just been discovered that Anders Behring Breivik also wrote a kind of treatise/manifesto under the anglicized name of Andrew Berwick. You can download the entire 1500+ pages HERE. It is titled 2083 - a Declaration of European Independence. And while it  is mostly a rambling jumble of other writers, it strives to be an intelligent spin on Breivik's phobia against "multiculturalism" and perhaps one of the most revealing statements about Breivik's religion comes in this part (Kyle Spotswood):

Christianity is a way of life, and life involves power relationships, Christianity is at once a political way of life. One can not separate out ones politics from ones faith and beliefs, they are intertwined as ones beliefs effects ones politics. Thus, within the Christian worldview, there is no separation of ‘Christianity’ and ‘politics’, as distinct spheres, ‘politics’ is but another sphere of the way of life that is Christianity. Politics is subsumed within Christianity.

Bryan Fischer and "historian" David Barton would definitely agree with that statement.


So were Anders Behring Breivik's actions part of a Christian Jihad? Not an organized one, but possibly one that carried out a blueprint set out  by the likes of our own Bryan Fischer and leaders of our own Christian Right.

Rupert's Religious Ark: Will The Pope, Rick Warren And Pat Robertson Jump Ship?

Hell, Can They Even Swim?


















As the Murdoch Empire takes a pounding in the UK's Parliament, the media and the court of public opinion, another interesting tidbit makes for drooling speculation: Murdoch's long arm of publishing includes a bizarre dichotomy  - pornography and Christian books.


But wait, it may not be so dichotomous! It might, in fact, be just a matter of quid pro quo: Murdoch's religious affiliations have been just as quiet about the latest hacking scandal as they've been about his porn industry. Perhaps they don't want to draw too much attention to the financial dealings and donations with the media mogul.


Catholic? Southern Baptist? Born Again?


Murdoch's personal religious leaning are murky to say the least: he has never formally pronounced his allegiance for any one Christian denomination or sect. While wed to his second wife, a Roman Catholic, he received an award:

 Catholic Herald 

In 1998 Rupert Murdoch was made a Knight Commander of St Gregory. He had apparently been recommended for the honour by Cardinal Roger Mahony, after giving money to a Church education fund. A year later he donated $10 million to help build Los Angeles Catholic cathedral.

Rupert's son, James, also created a firestorm when it was discovered that before meeting the pontiff in London during his visit, Murdoch had donated 100,000 pounds ($156,000) to the promotion of the visit. It became known as the "pope-for-hire" situation.  


Murdoch's hailing of Benedict's election was a bit brazen (and off he mark), but helped to dispel the rumors that Cardinal Ratzinger was still harboring Hitler-like tendencies. (see The Sun's Headline). 


The 700 Club Connection


Billionaire televangelist Pat Robertson has certainly profited from Murdoch's business ventures:

From donations provided by viewers, Robertson bought the Family Channel, sold part of its stock at a personal profit of $90 million, and then sold the rest to right-wing media mogul and FOX owner Rupert Murdoch for $1.82 billion.

Even die-hard Robertson fans considered the purchase to be an outrageous sellout: Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily wrote: "...Robertson was ready, willing and able to climb into bed with Rupert Murdoch ..."

Murdoch also owns two of the largest online religious sites, Beliefnet and Inspirio, but perhaps the biggest strangle hold he has is on religious publishing.


The Rick Warren Connection

"Do the religious authors making their fortunes off Murdoch wear gloves when they cash their royalty checks? Do they ever dare look in the mirror?"

                    - Frank Schaeffer, son of influential theologian Francis Schaeffer 

Murdoch's pornography empire is not too far down the publishing road from the likes of Zondervan and Harper Collins - two of the largest religious book publishers in America, if not the world. Under Zondervan, in fact, another empire flourished: The Purpose Driven Life, for after the sale of 20 million copies worldwide, it remains one of history's biggest bestsellers (appropriately, after The Bible). And with Zondervan's sales, the fortunes of Pastor Rick Warren have soared as well.* In addition, Murdoch has openly donated $2 million to Warren's P.E.A.C.E. plan, enabling a greater evangelical voice in foreign nations (primarily in Africa). 


Pastor Rick has repeatedly stated that he is Murdoch's pastor although Murdoch does not live in Orange County where the 120-acre Saddleback Church compound is located. He has also deflected charges of hypocrisy in dealing with Murdoch, reportedly the "king" of pornography:

‘I don’t have to agree with 100 percent of what another person does in order to work with them on the 20 percent that we do agree on.’

THE HEAT IS ON


Pornography aside, the hacking scandal has Catholics, evangelicals and other religious leaders calling on the religious community to sever all ties with Murdoch and to reassess their relations with his publishing venues and, yes, even FOX News Channel.**


But will the likes of Rick Warren and Pope Benedict follow suit? Will Zondervan and Harper Collins authors defect to other publishers? 


The problem here is that today's religious leaders, like Murdoch, go where the money goes and follow Rick Warren's chief motto: 


"Whatever It Takes."

*Enabling Warren to give back 25 years of his past salary to his beloved Saddleback Church. Warren says that he now "reverse tithes" giving 90% of his income to the church. This has been disputed, however, since concrete tax returns and financial statements have not been made open to the public. 

** Over one year ago, the Jewish community called upon Murdoch to sanction Glenn Beck for his references to the Holocaust, signing an open letter to Murdoch in Murdoch's own Wall Street Journal. It was posted on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Remembering Mike Ward - a personal and public tribute

Dear friends:


You should have known him. If you had, your lives would have been much richer. This video was put together by a wonderful movie man, Tyler St. Mark. It shows you what I was blessed with for so many years. 

More Notes From A Hospital Room, Waiting ...

The spirit in bed is lingering. I wonder when it will be completely extinguished. There is nothing for me to do but stare at Michael and type out this bit of time. 


"Comfort Care" - what the hell is it? Body comfort? Comfort for those of us watching him? I honestly don't know. 


It's late. I should get to sleep in the other hospital bed, but I don't want to equate myself with him.

Perhaps the best way to see Paul Ryan

Paul Ryan: America's Official Douchebag!

I don't normally write headlines like that, but the subject below needs attention.

The "Compassion" of Paul Ryan and The Right: "The Poor You Will Always Have With You - We'll See To It"

NOTE: Although I've posted this article under stressful circumstances  (see postscript below) the perspective presented is definitely appropriate and shared by many people in this country. I may not be writing for a week or two, so I hope that this article is passionate enough to suffice for a while. 

"But a certain Samaritan, as he traveled, came where he was. When he saw him, he was moved with compassion, came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. He set him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, and gave them to the host, and said to him, 'Take care of him. Whatever you spend beyond that, I will repay you when I return.'"
— Luke 10:30–36, World English Bible


On Tax Day, April 15th, Rep. Paul Ryan had this to say about "his" budget:

Our budget offers a compassionate and optimistic contrast to a future of health-care rationing and unbearably high taxes. We lift the crushing burden of debt, repair the safety net, make America’s tax system fair and competitive, and ensure that our health and retirement programs have a strong and lasting future.[1]

There are people who would beg to differ with Ryan's statement, notably the people fighting his expansive social welfare cuts on Capitol Hill and in the White House. The fight has extended to the matter of the national debt and the next several weeks will be grueling ... and revealing. If you look at the fight in a simplified perspective, it becomes a battle for the existence of compassion: should it be sustained now (in a diminished form), or in the future? Republicans are already naming their form of "compassion" by calling it INTERGENERATIONAL JUSTICE. 


But whatever the outcome of the fight, we must not lose sight of the fact that the economic and financial  crises we now face are about people: some people will benefit, while others will not. Cost cuts to social welfare agencies are already showing results: the poor are not only getting catastrophically poorer because they have less money, but also because they have less access to housing and necessary subsidies. It is the same with healthcare reform: while decrying imagined atrocities of "Obamacare", not one conservative member of Congress has put forth any real solution for the uninsured. Republican actions in the House have, in fact, ensured us that none will ever be forthcoming. 


The conservative image has never taken such a beating as in this Congress. 


In the past, the conservative rich have always trotted out the defensive statistic that conservatives actually give more/do more for the disenfranchised than liberals because the liberals want the government to do their giving for them. They chafed when George Bush's "compassionate conservatism" was met with the label of "oxymoron." What liberals have always realized, however, is that most conservatives tend to give only to their own causes and many times those causes not only leave out whole groups of Americans, but actually sustain the gap between the haves and the have-nots. Conservatives must control where their money goes. Liberals do it too, but conservatives do it more often and on a larger scale.


TRUE COMPASSION


Giving to those in need comes down to true compassion. But what is "true compassion"? Who is more compassionate - a church elder making a cake for a church bazaar held for the homeless or the man who off-handedly gives a man on the street a dollar because he asked for it? Both are compassionate, but the church elder KNOWS to whom she is giving her time, money and effort to, while the anonymous man cares not who the needy person is (or even if the person is, indeed, needy at all). Conservatives would not call the latter's gesture compassion, but the mere foolhardiness of a "bleeding heart liberal."


In biblical terms, one could associate the Good Samaritan with true compassion: when the priest and the Levite saw the man they both passed by. Why? Perhaps because when they saw them they judged him immediately as not worth their efforts. Now, notice that Christ's story did not say that the Samaritan knew he was helping a Jew.[2] In other words, the Samaritan did not judge, nor did he know who he was helping. The Samaritan just did what he felt was the right thing- the human thing -to do.

In another belief system (not really a religion), there's the story of  bodhisattva  Quan Yin (correction: stories - hundreds of legends, but all of their central themes involve her compassion). The most popular is the one that after she was made an Immortal, Quan Yin started her ascent to Enlightenment (heaven), but heard the cries of people still in need, forsook heaven and descended to help them. There are many parallels given to Quan Yin's Christian counterpart, Mary, the mother of Jesus. (Aside: it is interesting to note that much of the non-denominational and Protestant denominational Christian Right consider prayers to St. Mary to constitute "Mariolatry" or idolization of the Virgin Mary. They are loathe to think of any intercessor to Christ for mercy.)


COMPASSIONATE CAPITALISM -
 ACCORDING TO RYAN & CO.


Just as true compassion does not need judgment, it does not need a reason except for helping someone to survive in the best way possible. Compassion need not come in the form of the Christian thing to do, nor even the right thing to do, but simply as the human thing to do. People in need do not have the luxury of determining from whence compassion comes.


The above statement of Paul Ryan is, to say the least, dripping with the disingenuous patronizing to the poor that many conservatives today deal out: the belief that capitalism in all its glory will ultimately benefit everyone.  The conservative mindset also believes that individual investment, individual charity, individual compassion will also prove supreme. 


They will not. Individual charity is subjective and can be manipulated. It can be focused on a number too few to benefit as many as possible. Philanthropy and charity have given the public many blessings, to be sure, but no matter how generous, they have always benefited only a portion of the truly needy. In most cases, the giving has been focused. In addition, many faith-based organizations are unfortunately too focused and their charitable agendas can be skewed: catastrophes, for example, have been used by what might be called "God's Ambulance Chasers" more intent on conversion to religious beliefs than relief.[3]


Of course, individual charity can be the most valuable adjunct to a society's governmental social services: it lets us know that - coupled with government - our society is doing everything it can to aid in our people's survival. Budget-slashing by the likes of Rep. Paul Ryan, however, puts a burden on individual charity that it cannot possibly sustain ... without neglecting hordes of our country's citizenry. Perhaps the truly sad part about the likes of  Mr. Ryan is that he knows it, and doesn't seem to care - hence the disingenuous statement above. Of course, he may not be entirely to blame, since his party is, after all, controlled by a very powerful group: the coalition of religious entities known as the Christian Right. 


AT A CROSSROADS


From what we've seen these last twenty years, can anyone truly say without a doubt that social conservatives (the Christian Right)possess true compassion? Their own "agenda" of condemnation exposes how they pre-judge people and groups, vehemently prejudicing against segments of society: for example, we have seen the great Southern Baptist Convention try to harm businesses that have supported the LGBT community and treated it with respect. And while some within the Christian Right community describe their compassion as "tough love" (Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association comes to mind) others beg to differ on that point: can "love" of any kind be borne of bigotry? [4]


So now our country's compassion is at a crossroads because of a budget crisis: should it be government (liberal) or individual (conservative) compassion? According to people like Ryan, America cannot have both. We could, but that might mean raising taxes while giving more to charity. A blogger at Hubpages.com put it well::

There are two kinds of compassion in this country. The compassion of the left and the compassion of the right. The compassion of the Democrat and the compassion of the Republican. The compassion of the government and the compassion of the individual.

Whichever one you choose, put your money where your mouth is.

With "slash and burn" Republicans goaded by Dominionists and corporations, the compassion of the Democrat may be gone entirely. And the other kind of compassion will be meted out to a select few. 


God help us.




1.The new terminology for Ryan's futuristic "compassion" is INTERGENERATIONAL JUSTICE. (!?)


2. Remember, the Jew was stripped and therefore not recognizable by any particular clothing. Also, Samaritanism and Judaism were very similar Abrahamic religions and shared the tenet of circumcision. 


 - The story of the Good Samaritan poses a conundrum for many in the Christian Right because it is sited as the epitome of compassion by many evangelicals and therefore is something they strive for; however, the Samaritan does not evangelize or proselytize in any way, leaving the audience of the story to wonder why evangelizing is necessary in order to do good.
  
3. In the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, a faith-based organization spent $100,000 erecting electronic Bibles (60 loudspeaker systems from which Biblical verses were broadcast) among people who were still not receiving adequate medical treatment. Another example: after the horrendous Asian Tsunami, Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church sent food and clothing, along with 600,000 Christian scripture tracts (the cost of which totaled more than the emergency goods sent). Since the victims were mostly Buddhist and Hindu, the tracts were considered insultingly superfluous and respectfully sent back.


4. The concept of "love the sinner, hate the sin" is especially egregious: no other moral precept has ever been so misused as some ridiculous band aid for guilt. The phrase is always used while knowing that it goes against human nature: just as Jesus Christ new that the concept of "love thine enemy" was a hard sell, so to does the Christian Right know that LSHS falls on deaf ears, but it needs the phrase to sound more benign.


POSTSCRIPT





Parts of this article have been written while my former partner and best friend of fourteen years lies dying of liver cancer.  I have been his caregiver for six of those years, aided by his current partner and soul mate.  We live in San Francisco, (that bastion of liberalism and perversion!) certainly the most compassionate city in America. It was here that he was nurtured as an artist (award-winning theater director) and came to nurture other artists as well. It is in San Francisco that he is now comforted and cared for by an incredible extended family of friends, hospice workers, physicians, and therapists - many made possible by San Francisco and the caring state of California. I firmly believe that he could not have gotten greater "comfort care" anywhere else. He is passing in dignity as well. 


While there are conservatives who can be regarded as compassionate, I sincerely doubt that those in Congress (guided by today's Christian Right) would be as wonderfully human as the people I see around us. Ironic, isn't it - that such love and humanity should exist in the city they castigate most. 


We are put on earth to thrive from the knowledge that we have helped everyone else survive as best as possible. It is unfortunate that others do not see this purpose, because by being confined within boundaries of their own kind of compassion, they are depriving many people of the thing they need most: 


Humanity.