Christians Flee Iraq

From ABC News.

Guest Post: On Martyrdom and Persecution

A Guest Post by Alison Moffitt

Student: Sir?

President Bartlett: Yeah

Student: Do you consider yourself a man of principle?

President Bartlett: I try to be

Student: Well... Don't you consider, I mean I know they're our enemy, but don't you consider there's something noble about being a martyr?

President Bartlett: A martyr would rather suffer death at the hands of an oppressor than renounce his beliefs. Killing yourself and innocent people to make a point is sick, twisted, brutal, dumb-ass murder.

I recently rewatched the West Wing episode produced just after the September 11 attacks in 2001. The episode is called Isaac and Ishmael. This scene, where a student quizzes President Bartlett on martyrdom, has really got me thinking. What does it mean to be a martyr? What is the 'proper' context in which to die for your faith? Is President Bartlett right?

Last year I went to a talk by Bishop Josiah A. Idowu-Fearon who was visiting Australia at the time. Bishop Fearon oversees the Diocese of Kanduna in Nigeria. It straddles the middle of country, the very volatile part where the predominantly Muslim north meets the predominately Christian South. It's a dangerous place. Religious tensions are mixed up with political and economic power, and are regularly expressed with violent physical attacks.

Speaking to a small audience of mainly Christian workers in Australia last year, Josiah Fearon talked about the difficulties of leading the church in a climate like this. Not only does the church feel threatened by reactive Muslims, but many members of the church believe that it is their duty to defend the honour of the church through avenging other injured Christians or even attacking Muslims who slander the church. Fearon clearly articulated his own stance: Christians follow a crucified Lord, who was insulted, oppressed, persecuted and killed. He told his followers to turn the other cheek and warned his followers that they would be abused just like him. Christians who feel like they must defend the honour of their religion through further violence, or even avenge the injury or death of family, are not following Jesus as they do these things.

Josiah Fearon's attitudes have made him the target of a few assassination attempts, not just by Muslim extremists but also by Christian extremists who think he is too soft in his approach. But I don't think he is being soft. I think it would much harder to take persecution 'lying down' than fighting back.

Although they speak about slightly different things, I'm inclined to think that Josiah Fearon would agree with Jed Bartlett on martyrdom, and Jed Bartlett would agree with Josiah Fearon on persecution (even though Jed Bartlett is fictional...). Martyrs die for their faith, but they don't kill innocent people. Persecution means enduring suffering and humiliation without ever seeking revenge, and Christians must never initiate violence.

Do you think this is the correct way to view things? Issues of violent persecution and martyrdom don't really come up in contemporary Australian society, but they definitely do right now in other places of the world. This week, 13 people were killed in a religious attack on a village outside Jos, one of the larger towns in Josiah Fearon's diocese. Most of them were women and children. Is it fair to say that the church should sit by and watch people get abused and killed? If you were a Christian leader, how would you seek justice if your local community was governed by sharia law? Would you take justice into your own hands?

Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honourable in the sight of all.If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written: "'vengeance is mine, I will repay', says the Lord". To the contrary, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give hims something to drink; for by doing so you will heap burning coals on his head". Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Romans 12:17-21

P.S. Did anyone notice that Josiah Fearon and Jed Bartlett have the same first name?

UPDATE from Matt: Last year at CMS I was involved in interviewing Josiah Fearon. You can watch the interview here.

Belonging to the State

"In the accounts of the Christian martyrs, especially from the Second Century, one repeatedly comes up against one particular moment when Christians are challenged as to whether they will take part in religious veneration of the Emperor. It is the crucial question. The martyrs are the people who say they cannot. But in some of the accounts of martyrdom, there is a little bit more to it than that.One text, which comes from North Africa, in the mid-Second Century, depicts the Christians being tried in court as saying that they were perfectly prepared to pray for the Emperor, but not to him. One of them says, 'We pray for the Emperor. We pay our taxes.' In other words, this Christian was saying, we regard ourselves as loyal to the state and we take part in the processes that make the state work and, what is more, we pray for the good of the state; what we will not do is regard the state as sacred in itself.

This was seen, quite rightly, as an extremely subversive idea. It suggested that individuals, even slaves, could negotiate their relationships with the state, in some degree: they were not obliged to regard it as holy; there was another realm in which decisions might be taken and values and priorities fixed. That tension is reflected in the language that the Church used about itself.The early Christian community called itself an Ecclesia, using for itself the word normally used for an assembly of citizens in an ancient city, the assembly that reflected on public matters and took decisions together, so that, in effect, when the martyrs appear before their Roman judges, they stand for a citizens' assembly over against a Holy Empire.

Although that does not instantly create a new kind of Christian politics, it does create a very unsettling element within Roman society. Here are people claiming that, in some area of their lives, they belong outside the holy boundaries of the state and the Empire.Therefore the state begins to be seen not as a sacred comprehensive system, but as a mechanism for getting things done. The martyrs I referred to a few minutes ago promised to pay their taxes, because that makes society work, but that is the level at which their loyalty is engaged. Their deepest belonging is with the community who are citizens of some other kingdom." - Rowan Williams, Early Christianity & Today: Some Shared Questions, 2008 Gresham College Lecture.

What would it look like today for Christians to assert their identity as being outside the State whilst at the same time sustaining the State? And surely this would differ from country to country: The French Christian struggling under the weight of rigid secularism would have different issues to an American and America's 'Manifest Destiny' or a Chinese Christian where everything is suppressed for the glory of the state, or a Christian in a Muslim country where the whole state is under sharia law. And what if you were a Japanese Christian and had to sing a national anthem that praised the Emperor as a god? Pray for those around the world who live out the reality of this question every day.