A view from Norway which has nothing to do with Anders Breivik apart from being from the same country.
Breivik wrote a lengthy manifesto, over 1500 pages, using a pen name Andrew Berwick. He sent it to many different e-mail addresses in different countries just before the terror attacks. It was rather easy to find it from Internet (and maybe still is, I have not checked). As he was reported as being a Christian in many news sources after the attack, I became interested in knowing what kind of Christian beliefs he had. Therefore, I downloaded the manifesto and read the parts that were dealing with religion.
Close to the end of the manifesto, there is a questions & answers section were Breivik answers to questions (probably posed by himself). One of the questions deals with his personal relationship with religion, and how he sees religion in relation to science (page 1405 of the manifesto):
Q: Are you a religious man, and should science take priority over the teachings of the Bible?
A: My parents, being rather secular wanted to give me the choice in regards to religion. At the age of 15 I chose to be baptised and confirmed in the Norwegian State Church. I consider myself to be 100% Christian. However, I strongly object to the current suicidal path of the Catholic Church but especially the Protestant Church. I support a Church that believes in self defence and who are willing to fight for its principles and values, at least resist the efforts put forth to exterminate it gradually. The Catholic and Protestant Church are both cheering their own annihilation considering the fact that they embrace the ongoing inter-faith dialogue and the appeasement of Islam. The current Church elite has shown its suicidal face, as vividly demonstrated last year by the archbishop of Canterbury's speech contemplating the legitimacy of Shariah in parts of Britain.
I trust that the future leadership of a European cultural conservative hegemony in Europe will ensure that the current Church leadership are replaced and the systems somewhat reformed. We must have a Church leadership who supports a future Crusade with the intention of liberating the Balkans, Anatolia and creating three Christian states in the Middle East. Efforts should be made to facilitate the de-construction of the Protestant Church whose members should convert back to Catholicism. The Protestant Church had an important role once but its original goals have been accomplished and have contributed to reform the Catholic Church as well. Europe should have a united Church lead by a just and non-suicidal Pope who is willing to fight for the security of his subjects, especially in regards to Islamic atrocities.
I fully support that the Church gains more or less monopoly on religion in Europe (government policies, school curriculum etc at least) in addition to granting the Church several concessions which have been taken from them the last decades.
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.
On page 1362 he tells that he is a cultural Christian:
As a cultural Christian, I believe Christendom is essential for cultural reasons. After all, Christianity is the ONLY cultural platform that can unite all Europeans, which will be needed in the coming period during the third expulsion of the Muslims.
This quote is part of the section were he talks about Odinism. He says that he considers himself to be a Christian but Odinism still being an important part of his "culture and identity" (he claims to have studied Norse mythology). Before the quote he explains why he believes that Odinist symbolism is not a uniting force for all Europeans or even for Nordic peoples in the same way that Christendom is. Hence, his choice between Odinism and Christianity doesn't come from faith but from the practical viewpoint of uniting Europeans and what he thinks would be the best-working religious and cultural framework for that.
Two quotes from page 1363:
Q: Do I have to believe in God or Jesus in order to become a Justiciar Knight?
A: As this is a cultural war, our definition of being a Christian does not necessarily constitute that you are required to have a personal relationship with God or Jesus.
The PCCTS, Knights Templar is therefore not a religious organisation but rather a Christian "culturalist" military order.
On page 1346 Breivik writes about how he is concerned about his mental preparedness on "the day of the mission", as he calls the terrorist attack which he did in Norway. He writes about praying:
If praying will act as an additional mental boost/soothing it is the pragmatical thing to do. I guess I will find out...
Usually in Christian religion, prayer is a method of being in contact with God. In Breivik's version God is sidelined and the main purpose is to get mental boost in order to prepare one's mind to do some horrible acts that mentally sane human mind usually finds abhorrent. Unfortunately, there are many examples in the history of humankind when seemingly ordinary people have been able to do horrible things to other humans if they have learnt to think that it is the right thing to do. Breivik wants to use prayer as a tool for something similar. For sure, that goes very far from what Jesus is teaching about praying in the Bible.
The previous quote continues:
If there is a God I will be allowed to enter heaven as all other martyrs for the Church in the past.
As far as I understand, getting into heaven or paradise for being a martyr is more what is taught in Islam, not Christianity. And to be honest, Breivik's views about prayer, too, remind me more about some extremist Islamic teachings about jihad than about anything that is part of Christian religion. Breivik being profoundly anti-Islam, this seems some religious version of the horseshoe theory: the extremist of opposing sides tend to remind each other more than they remind moderates from both sides, in this case the ordinary Christians and Muslims.
To conclude, while Breivik claims in his manifesto being "100% Christian" he also says that he is "not an excessively religious man". The statements seem contradictory for the obvious reason that they are. However, we can rather safely say that Breivik is not really a Christian believer but supports Christianity only as a crucial part of European culture, alongside with science (as he finds being "the cradle of science" as an equally essential part of European heritage). Moreover, he finds it essential that science comes first and "biblical teachings" only after.
If Breivik is to be called a Christian, then he is so-called cultural Christian: someone who doesn't really believe in the religious teachings of Christianity but approves it as part of the culture. However, even as a cultural Christian, the Christian culture that he is calling for is from the era of Crusades. That is where he draws his inspiration for the knight templars and justiciar knights, as he calls the people that he is calling to join in his imaginary movement.
The quotes above are from Breivik's manifesto 2083: A European Declaration of Independence and my comments and conclusions are based only on what he writes there. This is because the first version of this post was a collection of quotes with a few comments that I collected for my blog post (in Finnish) which I published soon after the terror attacks in 2011.
Breivik has been questioned about his religious views later and his responses confirm that his connection to Christianity is more for cultural reasons than for faith. For Breivik's more recent views I have not collected any quotes myself so I just quote what the well-sourced Wikipedia article:
On 17 April 2012, when asked by Lawyer Siv Hallgren if he is religious, Breivik answered in the affirmative. Later, during the same conversation, he stated: "I am Christian. I believe in God, but I am a bit religious, but not especially religious." Breivik has later described his religious faith as being Odinism, a neopagan belief. While Breivik was frequently described in the media as a "Christian fundamentalist", such assertions were disputed in a number of sources, and Breivik has later denied it, stating in letters to Norwegian newspaper Dagen that he "is not, and has never been, a Christian", and that he thinks there are few things in the world more "pathetic" than "the Jesus-figure and his message". He said he prays and sacrifices to Odin, and identifies his religion as Odinism.
Hence, in the end, Anders Behring Breivik is more an Odinist than a Christian. He cannot be considered as an example of Christian terrorist like some where claiming soon after the terrorist attacks in 2011. The original version of this article was created as a response to those claims. However, in more recent articles that deal with Breivik it is not usually claimed anymore that he would be a Christian, or would have been during the attacks.
When editing this article I learnt that Breivik has again changed his legal name which is currently (2025) Far Skaldigrimmr Rauskjoldr av Northriki. I don't know what is the meaning of that name, if any, but it sounds like something inspired by Norse mythology, perhaps Odinism. But this is just speculation. If this is read by someone who actually knows what it means, you are welcome to comment.
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