My old uni friend Ben T. asked this great question in response to an earlier post. I thought it was too worthwhile to be buried, so I have taken the liberty of reproducing it:
Hey Michael, can I pose (badly) two questions that have been concerning me over the question of martyrdom and the contemporary Western church? I'minterested to know what you think.
The first is a question that I am sure you have done much more thinkingabout than me. In Desire of the Nations, O'Donovan says:
"Much martyrdom is suffered simply at the hands of the barbarians orcivilisational revanchists, for whom the combination of irreligion andviolence is more attractive than the rule of law. One can be martyredfor refusing sexual demands, for opposing ruthless landlords, forasking embarrassing questions about forgotten prisoners, and for manyother things. But these occasions of martyrdom are sporadic andunpredictable. The martyrdom to which the church must always be lookingforward (from what distance, who can tell?) is the martyrdom exacted bycivilisation itself when it lifts its arms against God. A church too determined to be at home in the world will be unprepared for this, andso unprepared for mission."
It is not clear to me why and how the martydom "exacted by civilisation itself" is any less sporadic and unpredictable than the other martydoms "simply suffered" on O'Donovan's account. Is it really possible to demarcate "first-class" and "second-class" martyrs in this way?My other question relates to your research overall. I am interested in what you are doing, but in thinking about that, I had to stop andquestion why I was interested. I guess I want to ask, "In a privileged, powerful,politically-connected church context (which I think is not an unfair characterisation of Sydney Anglicanism and mainstream academic UK Anglican theologising), what relevance does examination of martyrdom have?"You and I are exceedingly unlikely to become martyrs, and it sometimes seems to me that Christians (especially evangelicals) play with such labels to magnify any slight quarrels we might have in the workplace, or with our wider culture, in order to lend a significance to our ideological positioning that it would not otherwise deserve. Being a martyr is a powerful, and completely un-self-serving position - while being a beneficiary of an overwhelmingly congenial political/theological settlement is not. How can we think in any way of ourselves as martyrs when we are, in empirical fact, amongst the most privileged people on the planet, and in our societies?
I think these are such important questions I am not going to answer them straight away....
3 comments:
About interest in martyrdom from a politically powerful position:
If martyrdom is a possible natural outcome of normal Christian discipleship, could not the interest in martyrdom spring from a concern to evaluate whether we are living as disciples (even from a politically secure situation). Sort of like a modern springing forth of Bonhoeffer's "Cost of Discipleship" ?
Philip
Well, I think my first response to Ben's question is: 'yes'! I think a proper discussion of martyrdom will help us, as privileged Christians, get a properly Christian perspective and be more obedient. We ought to question whether our privilege is the result of our craven collusion with the powers or not. I want to stress that I don't think it is automatically the case. I think this is a frequent anabaptist error: that any earthly blessing has to be read as evidence of a lax and complacent church. Not so. But it ought to at least raise the question.
Furthermore, I am really starting to detest the use of the rhetoric of martyrdom in our intra-church squabbles and in our minor altercations in the work-place. I think remembering real martyrs actually ought to put this in perspective! Also: self-designation of oneself as a martyr misses the point entirely and is most likely evidence that one is NOT a martyr!
Our job is witness. Sometimes, this witness is, under God, heard. You would expect it to be, sometimes. We ought to be thankful to him when this is so. BUt sometimes, it is not heard, but rejected.
I would have taken more care with drafting my questions too, had I known they were to be elevated to post status.
Although I didn't frame it well, my concerns in the two questions were related. O'Donovan's demarcation seems to posit a form of martyrdom that is fundamental to the church's identity (witnessing when civilisation lifts its arms against God), and one that is merely accidental (opposing ruthless landlords, or speaking about forgotten prisoners). I can't work out on what grounds ruthless landlords, and disappeared prisoners, should not be seen as signs of a civilisation lifting its arms against God, though, and why this martyrdom is characterised as "sporadic" and "unpredictable", while the other is not.
I suppose where my concerns coalesce (Anabaptist-style?) is that to downplay the significance of these martyrdoms (resisting sexual violence, predatory capitalism, state injustice) is potentially to divert our attention from the concrete social, political and economic contexts in which we are being called to bear witness, and in which our witness may come to take the form of death (or, at least, loss and trouble).
I agree with you that you can't automatically say that a church that is not suffering is a church that is not faithful, and I think you've helpfully phrased that - particularly your point about it raising a question that needs to be answered, and allowing the real martyrs to ask us the hardest questions.
But I do think there is abundant evidence that we are already quite determined to be and remain "at home in the world", and quite resistant to cruciform witness in, most notably for me anyway, how we share our lives and our goods (and with whom we share them), and how we do (and do not) seek to make peace.
So, in the churches of Oxford and Sydney today, do we have/need martyrs? And what would/do our martyrs look like and (how) would we recognise them?
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