KNOXVILLE‎, Tennessee — On July 22, 76 people died in a bombing in Oslo and an attack on a Labor Party summer camp on the island of Utoya in Norway. The Guardian labeled the event “one of the worst atrocities in recent European history.” The Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik stands accused of both attacks, and yes, he admitted committing both crimes while also labeling them “atrocious” and “necessary.” Though media speculation suggested early on that the bombing in Oslo was an act of Muslim terrorism, the accused Breivik is not a Muslim. Rather the “terrorist” in question is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed white guy with reported ties to both the European Far Right and Christian fundamentalism. At Religion Dispatches, Mark Juergensmeyer pushes the analysis further by pointing out that Breivik, like Timothy McVeigh, is not just a terrorist but a Christian terrorist. He writes poignantly: "If bin Laden is a Muslim terrorist, Breivik and McVeigh are surely Christian ones. Breivik was fascinated with the Crusades and imagined himself to be a member of the Knights Templar, the crusader army of a thousand years ago. But in an imagined cosmic warfare time is suspended, and history is transcended as the activists imagine themselves to be acting out timeless roles in a sacred drama." For Juergensmeyer, both young, white, “self-enlisted soldiers” believed that their acts would “triggers a great battle to rescue society from the liberal forces of multiculturalism that allowed non-Christians and non-Whites positions of acceptability.” Both were the opening salvo in a battle to save their respective societies from the lethal grip of leftist politics/policies that they believed prevented white Christian men from attaining their rightful places of power and dominance. While Juergensmeyer and the European news outlets have no problem identifying Breivik with Christianity, specifically Christian fundamentalism, there is a hesitation, a slip even, in some American news coverage. What does it mean that he might be a Christian terrorist? Why would we associate Christianity with a “madman”, a “lone gun man”, or a deranged individual? What is at stake in associating Christianity with terror? At USA Today, Cathy Lynn Grossman queries: "Who here knows exactly what's meant by Norwegian Christian fundamentalist?…Is he a terrorist because he's Christian or a Christian who happens to be a terrorist or, if he's a terrorist, can he really be a Christian at all? And isn't that exactly the same points Muslims make about terrorists who claim to be Islamic?"      Read more