To Die For? Martyrdom and The Christian Life

Notes for a talk to St Ebbe's students, at the Ledbury conference.

1. Martyrdom is the external representation of the inner reality of the Christian life. Every Christian is always already a martyr, because every Christian has already died. The life of the follower of Jesus is thus always already a life lived in preparation of the possibility of such a trial. The hatred of the world for Jesus is shared by his followers. They already lay down their lives, and take up their crosses and follow him. They die to the world... Baptism is a symbol of this offering of the old self over to death which is what every Christian does as a testimony to the truth of Jesus Christ. Every Christian, we might say, is already a martyr. That there are some who suffer to the point of pain and death is a glorious sign for us of the reality of this. If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. (John 15:18)

2. To be a martyr is to be a witness.
Martyrdom can be a powerful form of truth-disclosing action. Christian martyrs bear witness to the love of God and the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Those who stake theological truth claims, then, should not oppress but rather suffer oppression.
The witness to the truth is one whose life displays the rightness of the believing, and thus the rightness of the belief. The Christian martyr not only declares but displays what it means to say “Jesus is Lord” or “God is Love”. Indeed, one might go further and say that without martyrs we simply would no longer have the meaning of these propositions

3. Martyrdom is an imitation of Jesus in his passion and death.

4. Martyrdom is not a cult of death, for the Christian martyr loves life. The death of the martyr is not a resignation to fate, but truly has a tragic, mournful aspect: for it points to the value of life. You cannot consider laying down one’s life for your friends a sacrifice of any significance if you hold life cheap. There is a “powerful sense of loss” at the heart of Christian martyrdom, because life is hallowed by it in its fullness. Jesus came to give abundant life (John 10:10), after all – an intensification of life. This is important – the structure of resurrection belief is an affirmation of the goodness of the created order, pointing not its eradication by the coming new order but its transformation.

5. Martyrdom affirms life by renouncing it.
The disciple gives up her life and her pleasures and her security to let God do with them what he may... because she sees these things as they truly are...'giving up' something, even your own life, means renouncing your claim to be a master over it.

6. Martyrdom is a sgn for us of the onging power and effectiveness of the gospel of Jesus in the world.
For Luther it is a sign of the presence of the true church! That people are willing to die shows that the gospel really does work to change the lives of people.

7. As Augustine says: 'it is the not the punishment but the cause that makes a martyr'.
Dying for a heresy is not martyrdom: it is just stupid. And also, the call of a Christian is not to seek bloody martyrdom, but to witness to Christ whatever the risk. The rest is in God's hands...
And so:

8. Martyrdom is an act of God, not of human beings.
You can'T [correction following John's question see comments] self-designate as a martyr, or pursue martyrdom for its own sake. No persecution complexes please!

9. Martyrdom is a sign of the distinctively Christian way in which we (ought to) speak
Christians must offer a suffering witness, not a speech of power. We do not pursue a discourse of rights, unless it is on behalf of others.

10. Martyrdom is a sign of the impermance of earthly power: and it WORKS!
It is loyally resistant... because it says 'Nebuchadnezzar, you are validly at rule, but not permanently, and only because you have been established by a higher ruler.' It exposes the folly of human imperialism. It is a great comfort to the oppressed!

11. Martyrdom is not merely a stand of eternal dissidence; it is a witness to the rule of God in Christ. So, it CAN accept peace terms when they come. We don't need to return to the catecombs to be truly Christian, but we must always be at the ready for the time when the tide turns and martyrdom becomes a possibility again. A careful collaboration with the power of the state is possible, but the church must always remember what its particular task is and not betray its nature by getting involved in the business of government.

12. Martyrdom is a sign that the Christian way of being a self is completely at odds with secular way of being a self.
Life for the Christian is not about pleasure and security. We renounce both - by which I mean we hand them over to God. We order them according to his designations.

Twelve Steps For Doctoral Students

Tomorrow I am going help at a seminar at a day hosted by the Latimer Trust at Oak Hill College for people interested in persuing graduate studies in theology.

Here's what I am going to say, or part of it:

Lessons I have learnt about doctoral study on the way:

1. Few books, but good. Learn to be a good re-reader rather than try to read absolutely everything. Who cares if you can read 1000s of mediocre books and articles? Find the best. Read them carefully.
2. It may not look it, but thinking is hard work. Thinking takes time to be good. So you will need rest, and holidays, and fun, and diversions. And these will actually help the work progress! Even TV is good.
3. Footnotes should be fun. Slathering everything in footnotes is a bad habit that helps nothing. References are sometimes necessary, but if a footnote is merely a sign of indecision - 'I couldn't work out whether to put it in or not, so I put in a footnote' - cut it out or add it in.
4. Don't wait for inspiration, start writing from day one! Getting words down on paper is really important, because you actaully do much of your thinking while you are writing. This business of leaving writing till the third year is weird to me.
5. Read outside you topic. Attend seminars and lectures. It is amazing how much benefit I have gained from this. It is amazing how unforeseen connections will spring up from completely unrelated contexts. Also, if you are aspiring to be a teacher in a certain area, use the free time to fill in the holes in your knowledge.
6. Find readers for your work/read others' work. Your supervisor will read your work twice a term, perhaps. You will need more than that! The price you might have to pay, is that you will have to read someone else's work: but the pay-off there is that it is comforting to see how they are struggling too!
7. Overcome the evangelical tendency to polemicise. We tend to see life as a series of battles between the forces of good and the forces of evil. But good scholarship is not about polemics first and foremost. Simple either/ors are a bad habit, because the truth is rarely that simple. Your work will gain in sophistication and ultimately in its polemical usefulness if you can avoid a 'goodies' /'badies' mentality.
8. Find surpring friends. Look for surprising agreements or harmonies with your work in other writers/thinkers. Show how someone completely different to you comes to the same conclusion. This is a very powerful strategy for apologetics, too.
9. Find the toughest opponent. Fall under their sway, if only for a week or two: be convinced by their case for a time. Then your reply will carry authority. Your work is only as strong as the opponents you defeat! My tendency when I started was to find any nutter to have a debate with, because debating nutters is always easier than debating reasonable people whose assumptions on the whole I share but who come to different conclusions...
10. Don't talk about you work when you don't feel up to it. One of the shattering experiences for a graduate student is when a family member or friend asks you, 'so, what are actually doing then'? and NOTHING COHERENT comes out of your mouth. This happens to me ALL THE TIME. And you walk away feeling very discouraged about it. Have a prepared speech perhaps! However: I have found writing and talking about my project in other contexts extremely helpful - I find blogging like this. It is a way of accessing other areas of your brain because it is writing/talking in a different mode, somehow.
11. Trust your methodological instincts; go with what you know. You got this far because you have some idea of what theological work is about. You have read quite a bit already. So, use what you already have to your advantage! I often feel intimdated by those theologians who know more philosophy than me (that's most of 'em): I forget that my training was far more in the area of biblical studies and biblical theology. I need to lean more on this, and see it as an advantage, while at the same time not neglecting to deepen my philosophical understanding.
12. Keep doing ministry. Keep serving the people of God, because the tendency of the doctoral student is to wallow in the solitary self-indulgence of it all. Keep preaching/teaching/ministering. After all, what are we doing it all for? If you aren't already doing some ministry in the church, my question is: what are doing entering into graduate theological study? Are you sure you are called to this?

Addenda: I was going to say something about prayer, but I feel foolish and not a little shame hectoring anyone about prayer. I was also going to say as matter of importance: learn to write well. There is an AWFUL lot of bad and unclear and dull writing out there. Write well.

Participating in Seminars: a guide

I sit in and participate in several academic seminars with an international and ecumenical membership, both formal and informal in nature. Sometimes they work really well as delightful mutual learning experiences; sometimes of course they don't. I notice that sometimes I say something (or someone else does) and it doesn't actually advance the discussion, it just confuses it, or sidetracks it, or diverts it. So, I have been thinking recently: what is the most 'helpful' way to contribute to one of these seminars? So, in the spirit of contemporary knowledge: a list. (An important note: I find myself breaking these all over the place!)

1. Do read the text under consideration before you come. Do have a couple of things you might raise as interesting points for discussion.

2. Be brief-ish: keep your comments to a sentence or two. Don't dominate. Advance the discussion rather than colonise it.

3. Be clear, or strive for clarity, rather than waffle till something intelligible arrives.

4. Be opinionated, please; but don't rant or preach. And try to say new things (for you) rather than return to the same criticism or the same author you trotted out last week - try to expand your range of comments.

5. Refer to the text in question as much as you can: this allows everyone a toe-hold in the discussion.

6. Try to understand before you criticise - it is a really big temptation to want to critique first.

7. Don't repeat yourself if people don't agree with you.

8. Ask others to clarify what they have just said, and do challenge it when necessary. Promote good communal listening practices.

9. Try to put emotions aside, and be ready to apologise for words out of turn.

10. Humour can increase the groups enjoyment of the subject: but use it sparingly.

11. Hang around after class and get to know people - increased trust increases the possibilities available to the class.

12. Bring snacks.

13. Change the subject if you feel it lagging, but not prematurely.

14. Anecdotes are almost always a waste of everyone's time. Think about it, then decide against. (I can't help myself...)


Any others?

PS - the seminars I am attending at the moment are very enjoyable, and I think it is partly because of observation of most if not all of these suggestions by the members!