Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
What did the Christchurch mosque shooter believe? Inside the mind of a collectivist killer
What did the Christchurch mosque shooter believe? Inside the mind of a collectivist killer
Jul 8, 2025 3:36 AM

As Muslims gathered for Friday prayers, a shooter livestreamed himself entering the Masjid Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, and killing 41 people with a semiautomatic weapon. He then drove to the Masjid mosque in nearby Linwood, where seven more have died. (An additional victim died off the premises, bringing the death toll to 49 as of this writing.) Police also found several improvised explosive devices on vehicles in the area.

Authorities have arrested four people – three men and one woman – but only one man has been charged with murder. Although the 28-year-old Australian’s name has not been released, he identified himself as Brenton Tarrant in the video.

A man posting online as Brenton Tarrant posted a 74-page manifesto titled The Great Replacement the morning before the attack to explain his motivation. His writing reveals a callous racial collectivist and self-described “eco-fascist” motivated in part by a concern about overpopulation, whose model society is the People’s Republic of China, and who believes murdering CEOs, enacting global trade regulations, and raising the minimum wage are keys to preventing “white genocide.”

What was his motivation?

Tarrant writes that below-replacement white birthrates, paired with the high fertility of non-white immigrants, will lead to the replacement of the white population in the West. He quotes a white nationalist mantra (the 14 words) and refers to the spontaneous process as “white genocide.”

He writes that he acts to avenge Muslim terrorist attacks on the West, as well as the Rotherham child sex ring, which victimized 1,400 British girls.

The 2017 election of Emmanuel Macron as president of France over “civic nationalist” (and “milquetoast”) Marine Le Pen of the National Front provided another tipping point. Tarrant describes himself as an “ethno-nationalist”: A civic nationalist believes in a multiethnic and pluralistic nation, while an ethno-nationalist believes race and soil are coterminous.

Why did he use a semiautomatic weapon?

Tarrant writes that he specifically chose a semiautomatic weapon in the hopes that leftists will press for gun control legislation, ultimately provoking a racial civil war in the United States. Charles Manson voiced similar hopes for his 1969 murder spree.

What are the mosque shooter’s political views?

Tarrant describes himself as a fascist and writes that “I mostly agree with Sir Oswald Mosley,” the founder the British Union of Fascists.“Conservatism is corporatism in disguise,” he writes. “I want no part of it.”

What are his concerns about environmentalism and overpopulation?

He adds, “[I] consider myself an Eco-fascist by nature.” He writes that he was partly motivated by concerns about overpopulation and environmental catastrophe. While “the environment is being destroyed by over population [sic], we Europeans are one of the groups that are not overpopulatingtheworld.… Kill the invaders, kill the overpopulation and by doing so save the environment.” Tarrant writes that he had no children in part because they are “ultimately destructive to nature and culture.” Under capitalism, Tarrant adds, moditized.”

Alt-Right figures including Richard Spencer and David Duke have embraced environmentalist or eco-fascist views – emphasizing the “soil” aspect of “blood-and-soil” – in recent years, and the works of Finnish eco-fascist Pentti Linkola are published by Alt-Right publisher Artkos Media. (Linkola wrote, “The worst enemy of life is too much life: the excess of human life.”)

Why would a white nationalist extol China?

“The nation with the closest political and social values to my own is the People’s Republic of China,” Tarrant writes. The Alt-Right has a soft spot for Asian nations, including North Korea, where mercantilist policies are often put in the service of racial purity.

How does he feel about individual rights and the free market?

Tarrant despises capitalism. His manifesto uses socialist-sounding language while dismissing “the myth of the individual, the value of work (productivity for thebenefitofyourcapitalist owners)andthesovereigntyof private property (to ensure none of us get grand ideas of taking the unearned wealth of ourowners).”

The cover of his manifesto praises “environmentalism,” “responsible markets,” and “worker’s [sic] rights” as ways to build a racially pure society.

What specific economic policies does this terrorist promote?

Tarrant writes that he would abolish free trade, restrict trade to white nations, raise the minimum wage, and promote the unionization of the work force. And murder CEOs.

“If an ethnocentric European future is to be achieved global free markets and the trade of goods is to be discouraged at all costs,” Tarrant writes. “BLOCK FOREIGN GOODS FROM WHITE MARKETS.” (Screaming capitalization in original.)

Since much of the non-white “invasion” responds to capitalist desire for low-wage labor, workers’ wages must be raised in any way possible, “[w]hether that is by encouraging and pushing increases to the minimum wage; furthering the unionization of workers; increasing the native birthrate and thereby reducing the need for the importation of labour; increasing the rights of workers; pushing for the increase in automation or advancement of industrial labour replacement or any other tactic that is available.”

CEOs are “greedfilled [sic] bastards [who] expect to replace our people with a race of low intellect, low agency, muddled, muddied masses” so that new immigrants can “earn our wealthy benefactors their second yachts andtheir fifth properties!”

“KILL YOUR LOCAL ANTI-WHITE CEO,” he instructs his national socialist, terrorist followers.

How do his pare to those of other Alt-Right terrorists?

His views are in keeping with other white nationalist extremists who have resorted to violence. Jeremy Joseph Christian, an Alt-Right terrorist arrested for murdering two Muslims at a Portland train station in 2017, supported Bernie Sanders over the issue of tariffs and economic interventionism.

Norway mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik – whom Tarrant says he contacted and asked for a “blessing” before the Christchurch attack – wrote in his own 1,500-page manifesto that his economic views fell between socialism and social democracy. He favored the “development of alternative energy” to “save the environment” and argued it is “essential” that “national states have a controlling stake in” multinational corporations.

James Wenneker Von Brunn, who opened fire inside the Holocaust Museum in 2009, wrote in his book Kill the Best Gentilesthat Christianity is a “hoax,” denounced “JEW CAPITALISTS,” and concluded that “WESTERN SOCIALISM, represents the future of the West.” (Capitalization in the original.)

Why do racialists hate capitalism and the free market so much?

In the Alt-Right/white nationalist worldview, all economic and social activity should be segregated to maximize the power of the white race. The Alt-Right correctly assesses that the free market allows the peaceful exchange of goods and services between any two willing parties. These economic ties create social relationships, friendships, even marriages, which threaten the ethnic “purity” of their desired ethnostate.

Would he spare anyone?

No. Tarrant wrote, since there “are no innocents” a racial war, racialists must aim at “[p]reventing these enemies from reaching adulthood and their full potential.”

Did the Christchurch mosque shooter claim to be a Christian?

Answering whether Brenton Tarrant is a Christian is, in his words, plicated. When I know, I will tell plication may be a semantic distinction derived from Breivik’s notion that it is possible to be a cultural Christian without believing in God. Breivik wrote that his followers “don’t need to have a personal relationship with God or Jesus to fight for our Christian cultural heritage. It is enough that you are a Christian-agnostic or a Christian atheist.”

How would a Christian respond?

Christianity begins with a belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ as expressed in the Apostles or Nicene Creed. Building on the mandment to “love your neighbor as yourself,” Christianity has led the way in affirming the innate human dignity of all life from conception to natural death, irrespective of ethnicity, religion, nationality, sex, or disability. Every murder, especially the mass killing of innocent civilians at prayer, is a tragedy that violates Western values.

Life must be taken only by lawful authorities after mission of a crime, as determined by just laws rooted in natural law and right reason.

Speaking as a member of the Eastern Christian tradition, I am unaware of a single church canon forbidding marriage between members of two ethnic groups in the 2,000-year history of the Christian Church and its ecclesiastical law. However, ethnic separatism has been condemned as anti-Christian.

Where can I learn more about the views of Alt-Right terrorists?

I’ll be discussing the Alt-Right again at this year’s Acton University. If you haven’t yet, consider signing up.

You can read Brenton Tarrant’s full manifesto, The Great Replacement, here – if you have the stomach.

Frazao / .)

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Orsini on “Principled Conservatism”
Long-time Acton Institute friend and Markets and Morality contributor Jean-Francois Orsini has a new book out. In Fight the Left (yes, it has a polemical edge!), Orsini argues that there are essentially two approaches to the world: liberalism and conservatism. His use of liberalism is decidedly contemporary (i.e., modern, not classical liberalism). His conservatism is sympathetic to the free market but, more importantly, it is “first principled,” meaning that he lays out the foundation on which conservatism must be based....
Jordan Ballor: Let Detroit’s farms flourish
Detroit has has been plagued by the economic downturn more than most cities, and has struggled to recover. However, sometimes gloomy economic conditions breed innovation. That is the focus of Jordan Ballor’s “Let Detroit’s farms flourish” which appeared in the Detroit News. Ballor explains that residents are putting vacant lots to use by urban farming: These areas of growth, in the form of munity programs and individual plots, represent a significant avenue for the revitalization of the city. The benefits...
Jim Wallis: From Sandalista to Champion of Big Government
Essential reading on Jim Wallis by long-time observer Mark Tooley of the Institute on Religion & Democracy: How does Wallis—the old Students for a Democratic Society agitator who touted the Vietcong in the 1970s and the Sandinistas in the 1980s, who denounced welfare reform in the 1990s as a betrayal of the poor, and whose funding by George Soros was exposed last year—enlist Catholic bishops and mainstream evangelicals in his endless political campaigns? “We’re frankly challenging leadership on both sides...
Rev. Sirico: Not Whether to Help the Poor, But How
The budget proposed by House Republicans has lead to a heated debate; one key facet being whether funding should be cut for programs that benefit the poor and vulnerable. Critics claim the House Republicans’ proposed budget violates Catholic social teaching (click here to read the critics’ open letter to Speaker Boehner). Rev. Robert A. Sirico’s first response to Boehner’s critics appeared in NRO. In this mentary Rev. Sirico expands upon his first response and articulates how Catholics can disagree on...
What’s the new “+1” button on Acton PowerBlog posts all about?
You may have noticed a new addition to the PowerBlog; the new +1 button joins the existing Facebook and Twitter buttons at the top of posts. +1 is a new initiative from Google that brings forth more relevant search results influenced by user feedback. Here is a snippet from the official Google launch: +1 is as simple on the rest of the web as it is on Google search. With a single click you can mend that raincoat, news article...
Rev. Sirico: Kevorkian’s ‘Terminal TV’
Writing in the Detroit Free Press, reporters Joe Swickard and Pat Anstett describe the life and June 3 passing of Jack Kevorkian. Long before he made a name for himself as a “assisted suicide advocate,” Kevorkian was known to the nurses at Pontiac General Hospital in Michigan as “Dr. Death” for his bizarre experiments. Death came naturally to the man who’d vowed he’d starve himself rather than submit to the state’s authority behind bars. “It’s not a matter of starving...
Samuel Gregg: Truth, Lies, and Euros
It is very easy to forget what is happening in other parts of the world especially when we are in the midst of our own financial crisis in the United States. Considering the economic challenges we are faced with, this may be a mistake as we can learn from other’s problems. Europe is experiencing economic woes that continue to worsen. In the American Spectator, Samuel Gregg explains: As Europe’s financial crisis worsens, it’s increasingly apparent that the economic woes of...
The Paper Pope
I have said it many times in the past, but now I have confirmation: According to the editors of the New York Times, the Pope is not permitted to make moral judgments because only the Editorial Board of the New York Times (all genuflect here) is permitted to pontificate: “Ms. Abramson, 57, said that as a born-and-raised New Yorker, she considered being named editor of The Times to be like “ascending to Valhalla.” “In my house growing up, The Times...
My Visit to The Barnabas Group
I recently had a unique opportunity to speak about unity in Christ’s mission. I was asked to present an address to The Barnabas Group (TBG) in San Diego (May 9) and Costa Mesa (May 10). The Costa Mesa site is in Orange County for those who do not know Southern California. My title for both meetings was: “The Unity Factor: One Lord, One Church, One Mission.” The Barnabas Group is one of the more unique missions and ministries I’ve encountered....
Rev. Sirico on the Catholic Charities Controversy in Illinois
A dispute has arisen in Illinois between Catholic Charities and the state government. As the National Catholic Register explains it, “Catholic Charities branches of three Illinois dioceses have filed a lawsuit against the state of Illinois in order to continue operating according to Catholic principles — by providing foster care and adoption services only to married couples or non-cohabitating singles.” In an interview, with the newspaper, Rev. Robert A. Sirico defends Catholic Charities in light of the principle of subsidiarity...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved