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Martyrdom and the Politics of Religion explores the ways that Salvadoran Catholics sought to make sense of political violence in their country in the 1970s and 1980s by constructing a theological ethics that could both explain repression in religious terms and propose specific responses to violence. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, the book highlights the ways that progressive Catholicism offered a justification and tools for political resistance in the face of extraordinary destruction. Using the case of Catholicism in El Salvador, the book explores the nature of religious responses to social crisis and the ways that ordinary believers construct and strive to live by ethical systems. By highlighting the importance of theological belief, of narrative, and of religious rationality in political mobilization, it touches questions of general interest to readers concerned with the social role of religion and ethics.
The Purple Crown exhibits how Christianity’s ultimate act of witnessing, martyrdom, is an inherently political act. York argues that the path of Christianity leads to a confrontation with the same powers that crucified Jesus. Tripp York goes outside of the normal understandings of public theology and points to the most powerful persuaders within Christian history: the martyrs. The martyrs remind us of the moment in which all the world was simultaneously exposed as fallen and redeemed, of Christ’s death and resurrection. In York’s telling, just as the martyrs’ deaths reveals Christ, so too their lives bear witness to the City of God, exposing those powers and principalities that crucified Jesus and continue to crucify him through his followers. He includes the biography of the El Salvador priest Oscar Romero.
Utilising a wide range of early sources, this title identifies the roots of the concept of Christian martyrdom, as lloking at how it has been expressed in events such as the shootings at Columbine High School in 1999.
Martyrdom is a controversial and disputed concept. Just as religion is often hijacked by politics, martyrdom is frequently ascribed to a narrow, partisan, and parochial foundation. This is the first book to present varied views on the topic of martyrdom, reaching beyond cliches and simplistic explanations to provoke deep consideration of the essential nature of human beings and society. The volume's authors—experts in the disciplines of psychology, theology, and politics—examine martyrdom in thoughtful and thought-provoking chapters. A closing conversation between the authors is designed to inspire further discourse and debate. Readers engaged in the exploration of social justice, conflict, psychology, religion, and the politics of memory will find this book unique and stimulating. The authors have appeared on public television and public radio, as well as ABC, CBS, and NBC news and discussion programs.
Martyrdom and the Politics of Religion explores the ways that Salvadoran Catholics sought to make sense of political violence in their country in the 1970s and 1980s by constructing a theological ethics that could both explain repression in religious terms and propose specific responses to violence. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, the book highlights the ways that progressive Catholicism offered a justification and tools for political resistance in the face of extraordinary destruction. Using the case of Catholicism in El Salvador, the book explores the nature of religious responses to social crisis and the ways that ordinary believers construct and strive to live by ethical systems. By highlighting the importance of theological belief, of narrative, and of religious rationality in political mobilization, it touches questions of general interest to readers concerned with the social role of religion and ethics.
In recent years, terrorism has become closely associated with martyrdom in the minds of many terrorists and in the view of nations around the world. In Islam, martyrdom is mostly conceived as "bearing witness" to faith and God. Martyrdom is also central to the Christian tradition, not only in the form of Christ's Passion or saints faced with persecution and death, but in the duty to lead a good and charitable life. In both religions, the association of religious martyrdom with political terror has a long and difficult history. The essays of this volume illuminate this history--following, for example, Christian martyrdom from its origins in the Roman world, to the experience of the deaths of "terrorist" leaders of the French Revolution, to parallels in the contemporary world--and explore historical parallels among Islamic, Christian, and secular traditions. Featuring essays from eminent scholars in a wide range of disciplines, Martyrdom and Terrorism provides a timely comparative history of the practices and discourses of terrorism and martyrdom from antiquity to the twenty-first century.
In recent years, martyrdom and political violence have been conflated in the public imagination. Rubén Rosario Rodríguez argues that martyr narratives deserve consideration as resources for resisting political violence in contemporary theological reflection. Underlying the three Abrahamic monotheistic traditions is a shared belief that God requires liberation for the oppressed, justice for the victims and, most demanding of all, love for the political enemy. Christian, Jewish and Muslim martyr narratives that condone political violence - whether terrorist or state-sponsored - are examined alongside each religion's canon, in order to evaluate how central or marginalized these discourses are within their respective traditions. Primarily a work of Christian theology in conversation with Judaism and Islam, this book aims to model religious pluralism and cooperation by retrieving distinctly Christian sources that nurture tolerance and facilitate coexistence, while respecting religious difference.
Acts of martyrdom have been found in nearly all the worlds major religious traditions. Though considered by devotees to be perhaps the most potent expression of religious faith, dying for ones god is also one of the most difficult concepts for modern observers of religion to understand. This is especially true in the West, where martyrdom has all but disappeared and martyrs in other cultures are often viewed skeptically and dismissed as fanatics. This book seeks to foster a greater understanding of these acts of religious devotion by explaining how martyrdom has historically been viewed in the worlds major religions. It provides the first sustained, cross-cultural examination of this fascinating aspect of religious life. Margaret Cormack begins with an introduction that sets out a definition of martyrdom that serves as the point of departure for the rest of the volume. Then, scholars of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam examine martyrdom in specific religious cultures. Spanning 4000 years of history and ranging from Saul in the Hebrew Bible to Sati immolations in present-day India, this book provides a wealth of insight into an often noted but rarely understood cultural phenomenon.
In The Myth of Persecution, Candida Moss, a leading expert on early Christianity, reveals how the early church exaggerated, invented, and forged stories of Christian martyrs and how the dangerous legacy of a martyrdom complex is employed today to silence dissent and galvanize a new generation of culture warriors. According to cherished church tradition and popular belief, before the Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal in the fourth century, early Christians were systematically persecuted by a brutal Roman Empire intent on their destruction. As the story goes, vast numbers of believers were thrown to the lions, tortured, or burned alive because they refused to renounce Christ. These saints, Christianity's inspirational heroes, are still venerated today. Moss, however, exposes that the "Age of Martyrs" is a fiction—there was no sustained 300-year-long effort by the Romans to persecute Christians. Instead, these stories were pious exaggerations; highly stylized rewritings of Jewish, Greek, and Roman noble death traditions; and even forgeries designed to marginalize heretics, inspire the faithful, and fund churches. The traditional story of persecution is still taught in Sunday school classes, celebrated in sermons, and employed by church leaders, politicians, and media pundits who insist that Christians were—and always will be—persecuted by a hostile, secular world. While violence against Christians does occur in select parts of the world today, the rhetoric of persecution is both misleading and rooted in an inaccurate history of the early church. Moss urges modern Christians to abandon the conspiratorial assumption that the world is out to get Christians and, rather, embrace the consolation, moral instruction, and spiritual guidance that these martyrdom stories provide.
This book presents an interpretive, macro-historical, and sociological account of martyrdom. Moving away from the notion of martyrdom as an object of individual behavior and seeing it instead as a significant cultural work performed by communities in the wake of a violent death, it provides a novel interpretation of Western political and religious history. In addition to thus redressing the disproportionate attention given to the concept’s relationship to Islam, the author offers a new perspective on two defining historical processes: secularization and the rise of modern sovereignty in the form of the nation-state. An innovative analysis of the role of sacrifice in contemporary culture, which constitutes a timely critique of long-dominant theories of disenchantment and the privatization of religion, The Ultimate Sacrifice will appeal to sociologists and social theorists with interests in religion, politics, and the connection between the two.