Let's play "spot the religion."

It has become a commonplace observation that when there is a terror related crime, the media will go out of its way to obscure the religion of the suspect is a Muslim. 

On the other hand, such circumspection disappears entirely when the suspect is or might be Christian, kind of, even if he is the only Protestant, Rome-leaning Freemason in recorded history (and for those who don't know - probably an overwhelming majority of the population, those categories are essentially mutually exclusive....*sigh*.) For example,  The Atlantic Magazine tells its readers about the "Christian" suspect.

However, according to Mollie Hemingway at Get Religion;

We learn that he’s a member of a political party that advocates for stricter immigration and lower taxes. He apparently argued that socialism was breaking down traditions, culture, national identity and other societal structure and that this made society weak and confused. We learn that he was a fan of anti-Nazi World War II hero Max Manus. He liked Dexter, the TV show about the serial killer. He was into partying, gaming and fitness. We learn about his like of John Stuart Mill.


And we learn that he ran an organic fruit and vegetable farm. Hmm, so I guess we’re still waiting to find out about why The Atlantic is so dramatically pushing this idea that Breivik was motivated by Christian fundamentalism.

Now it’s certainly true that the New York Times printed that a jihad group had claimed responsibility for the attack. An attack that, based on the evidence we have thus far, they didn’t actually commit. And certainly some parts of the blogosphere were either too trusting of this report or too eager to believe that this attack fit into the mold of Muslim terrorism as opposed to anti-government terrorism.

But now the media are committing an equal and opposite rush to judgment. It is certainly true that a police chief said that this man was a “Christian fundamentalist.” But at this point, I’ve seen precisely zero evidence that he was one, much less that he has in any way claimed it as a motivation for what he did. Maybe that will happen. Maybe he is right now telling police that his interpretation of a particular book of the Bible means that you shoot up 80-plus kids on an island. I don’t know.

Until such time as we learn that, though, this seems more like an attempt to force the shooter’s motivation into something equivalent to Islamist terror. Again, maybe it is. Maybe we will discover a trove of writings about how Jesus commands his followers to kill a bunch of kids. I don’t know. But we certainly don’t have that now.

I think we can safely say, as Mother Jones does, that the shooter was “obsessed with the impact of Islam on Norwegian society.” That’s precisely what I picked up when I read the many dozens of pages of internet comments.

The media have an unfortunate history of taking people who claim political motivations, be they anti-government Timothy McVeigh or anti-abortion Eric Rudolph, and call them “Christian” terrorists. Even if these same people vehemently deny that their acts had anything to do with their (lack of) religious views. And I’m sure that happens with terrorists of other stripes whose violence isn’t related or strongly related to their religious views.

I’ve read a bit more since I started writing this. Norwegian media have linked to the terrorist’s explanation for his actions. He spent years on his plans. There is quite a bit to chew on in terms of his obsession with Muslims, multiculturalism, nationalism, etc. And it seems, if I’m reading this correctly, that he was part of a Masonic group called Knights Templar.

And here’s an English translation of a Norwegian blog that has been tracking conservative extremists. He says that it’s wrong to call the terrorist either a “Christian conservative” or a “neo-Nazi”:

Breivik was inspired by an internet community who brands itself “counter jihadist”, a community espousing an ideology that may be considered as extreme right-wing, which also has connections to European neo-fascism. It’s a community I have been following fairly closely for a number of years. I am not surprised that the spirit of this community has now resulted in an act of terror in Norway. What is surprising is the scale, the scope of the terrorist attacks. The number of casualties exceeds the Al Qa’ida attack in London a few years ago. Although there are examples of terrorist attacks perpetrated by similarly motivated people in the past, they have not approached the scale of this incident.

If you read the terrorist’s own manifesto, it seems like this is a more fruitful avenue for journalists to pursue. And I guess many of us will need some refresher courses on Freemasonry, too.

It's hard to imagine a media source linking Islam to an act of terror on such similarly weak evidence.