Saturday 23rd July - The Tragedy in Norway

On twitter, 'Christianity' has become one of the top trending topics in the UK. The description for this is 'Christianity is responsible for 90% of the wars in history'. I'm not going to address this because it would be off topic to do so. I do find it, however, disrespectful and ignorant of people to group all Christians together and blame us for what has happened. I retweeted something along the lines of the murderer in Norway not being Christian (he is said to be a Christian fundamentalist). Someone replied to me saying: 'It's like saying Al Qaeda isn't Muslim.' Come to think about it, and please correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think they are. Not truly. Just like the man who has been charged, Christians across the world would agree that his actions were not Christian. He may have been acting on what he believed Christianity to be, but if so he was misguided. His belief was a subversion, a misunderstanding of Scripture and the message of Christ.

As Pope Benedict XVI writes in his second book titled 'Jesus of Nazareth': 'The cruel consequences of religiously motivated violence are only too evident to us all. Violence does not build up the kingdom of God,the kingdom of humanity. On the contrary, it is a favorite instrument of the Antichrist, however idealistic its religious motivation may be. It serves, not humanity, but inhumanity ... No; violent revolution, killing others in God’s name, was not his way. His “zeal” for the kingdom of God took quite a different form.'

Anyway, I'm not going to go on and preach. I should have thought carefully before posting this. I'm not thinking straight and am still quite shocked about all the news surrounding the events. I might even take this post down.

No words can describe the terrible events that have occurred in Norway. I ask that you pray for the victims and their family, along with those responsible for the attacks. And if you can spare a moment, you can find an incredibly emotional eyewitness account of the shootings at the Norwegian youth camp here.

EDIT: This is a good article on why we need to ask what the word 'fundamentalist' means in this context, as well as the importance of sticking to the facts when it comes to reporting.

1 comment:

  1. Good post. The first thing that sprung to mind was the IRA who claim to be Catholics and who murder in the name of Christianity. All forms of terrorism which claims people's lives is evil.

    ReplyDelete