The world continues to grieve for the country of Norway, after a bombing in Oslo’s City Center and subsequent shooting that left 92 dead on Friday.
32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik of Oslo is in custody after allegedly detonating a bomb which targeted government buildings, including the Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg’s office. Seven people were killed there.
Then he traveled to the Island of Utoya to attack a youth summer camp. Oslo police say more than 80 people were killed at the camp organized by the governing Norwegian Labor party, most of them youth.
RK Ulrich, the founder of The Bridge International based in Florida, was born and raised in Norway. She says the church has responded: “There was an immediate response from all church levels, from all Christian levels. They just all poured in with their compassion.”
While the majority of Norwegians claim to be Christians because of the state-sponsored Lutheran church, Ulrich says many may not have a personal relationship with Christ. “When you’re born, you’re born into the church automatically,” Ulrich says. “You get baptized. You go for confirmation and all those things are part of your Christian heritage. A lot of people are defined as Christians in Norway, but they may never have seriously read the Bible or have a relationship with God.”
That should help explain why Breivik claims to be a conservative Christian. Ulrich spent much of the weekend looking through Breivik’s Facebook and other blogs, including his 1,500 page manifesto.
She says Breivik had been planning this attack for nine years, wanting to punish his national leadership for being so multicultural and Muslim friendly. “He states he wants to support the Christian principles culturally, but there’s nothing in his blog that even indicated that he even has any personal relationship with Jesus or understands salvation or leading a Christian life,”Ulrich says
In his manifesto he says he’s not religious, has doubts about God’s existence and does not pray, but does assert the primacy of Europe’s “Christian culture” as well as his own pagan Nordic culture.
Breivik instead hails Charles Darwin, whose evolutionary theories stand in contrast to the claims of the Bible, and affirms: “As for the church and science, it is essential that science takes an undisputed precedence over biblical teachings. Europe has always been the cradle of science, and it must always continue to be that way. Regarding my personal relationship with God, I guess I’m not an excessively religious man. I am first and foremost a man of logic. However, I am a supporter of a monocultural Christian Europe.”
However, the international news media continues to call him a Christian fundamentalist. Ulrich says that could fuel anti-Christian propaganda around the world. “It’s such a great opportunity for someone in opposition to the whole Judeo-Christian worldview to say, ‘Look, these are crazy people. To become a Christian, you become like him.'”
She’s asking Christians worldwide to pray that doesn’t happen. Ulrich is also asking Christians to “pray for the Norwegian people that the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ will be echoed through the country for many, many who perhaps never have heard it clearly, will hear the clear biblical gospel.”
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