The Christian Knights of the Oslo Killer

Killing the Buddha‘s Jeff Sharlet is on this week’s edition of NPR’s “On the Media” to discuss the 1500-page manifesto of self-described “Christian knight” Anders Breivik, the Oslo man who last week killed at least 78 of his fellow Norwegians — liberals he considered traitors for their tolerance of Muslims. Breivik’s manifesto explains his mission in religious terms, but many American conservatives — including those whose anti-Islam writings are quoted extensively in the manifesto — insist that Breivik can’t be a Christian because, well, killing sprees aren’t very Christian. Jeff agrees that Breivik isn’t a good Christian; but since Breivik insists he’s some kind of Christian, the real question becomes, What does he mean by “Christian”? Jeff decided to attempt to answer that question by reading the manifesto and annotating it along the way via twitter, a method that draws attention to the narrative arc of Breivik’s text: from lost to found, from secular to Christian, from “culturally Christian” to religiously Christian, from a fascination with the history of the crusades to a spiritual determination to relive them…

Hear the story at “On the Media.”

You can also see Jeff a few days earlier discussing the manifesto with Amy Goodman on “Democracy Now.”