Sacrificing one's life for God:
Of martyrdom and religious ideology

In the wake of the tragedy of September 11, religion is front and centre in the public debates surrounding the myriad issues now being raised by the media.  In addition to the many ongoing spiritual expressions of grief in community, there is the issue of a brand of terrorism that is inspired by religion, in this case, Islam.  What does this say about the role of religion at a time when we were increasingly being told of its waning influence in the world?  And can religion be an instrument of evil?

Leaders of the Islamic faith have been obliged to publicly reiterate that there is nothing in their religion that is violent or would "naturally" lead to the creation of terrorist organizations bent on mass murder in hopes of becoming "martyrs."

As with other faiths, it is a specific interpretation, a religious ideology, that would lead one to kill others in the name of God.

Certainly Christ Himself told His followers that there would come a time when there would be those seeking to kill them and, in so doing, would imagine they are doing a service to God!

The history of the Church itself is a history of martyrdom.

In the Christian perspective, a "martyr" is, first and foremost, a witness to Christ.  The fact of his or her suffering and death for their faith in Christ is the result of the primary emphasis of their public affirmation of Christ.

The early Christians lived in more "philosophic" times, it would seem.  The Romans didn't actually want to kill the martyrs in the first instance.  They wanted to inflict enough pain on them to force them to recant their faith and return to the religion of the Empire. 

Torture was a kind of "argument" therefore, with bodily endurance the ultimate test of truth.

To this end, they developed the most creative of tortures, such as smearing the bodies of the martyrs with honey and then tying them to the ground as fodder for insects.  

Those who think that history doesn't repeat itself should think again, however.  The New Martyrs of the Turkish Yoke and those of the Soviet era endured more refined tortures.  

A former KGB officer who headed an investigative committee on Soviet religious persecution produced many, many documented cases of Priests being nailed to the doors of their Churches and Iconostasis doors, among other horrific examples.

But for the head of that committee, the truly "defining" torture was the placing of Christians on frozen lakes, after pouring water over their naked bodies and then watching as they slowly stiffened . . .

A martyr, in this sense, was someone who was truly called to such a fate by God. 

In the Life of St Lawrence the Deacon of Rome, the saint is condemned to death on a white-hot iron grid.

His tormentors await his reactions, but they are the ones who are sorely disappointed.  After a time on the grid without a whimper, Lawrence turned to them to say, in effect, "You can turn me over, I'm done on this side."

Christian martyrdom is always a special vocation from the Holy Spirit.  The martyrs are chosen to achieve God's often unknown purposes and it is God Who gives them the necessary Grace and strength to accomplish His will.

There is also the belief that those soldiers who died in defense of their country and in opposition to evil, if not martyrs, at least perform an heroic act.

Such was the case with the Kozaks who fought the Turks, especially in their efforts to free Christians taken into slavery.  Greek and other writers of that period praise them unceasingly, suggesting that those who died in that endeavour earned a right to heaven by so doing.

The crusader knights also believed that if they should fall in battle with their enemies, whom they considered to be the enemies of the Church, that this would earn them a place in heaven as well.

The "Crusader vs. Islam" paradigm has, once again, been brought front and centre in the current crisis that we are now in.  

For the terrorists who use a particular religious ideology based on Islam, death at the hands of their western enemies is a sure passage to heaven.  Taking as many of the "infidels" along with one is also a primary aim.

Again, it must be emphasized that one may justify any action on the basis of any religion, but not without, at the same time, doing the greatest damage possible to the spiritual integrity of its basic religious message of peace and brotherhood.

Religious ideology, rather than lived religious faith, is always a selective enterprise.  In addition to picking and choosing specific elements of a body of religious belief while ignoring others, religious ideology reinterprets or "reconstructs" that faith to suit its own political agenda.  

Religion and culture, the two going hand in hand, will always continue to inspire our imagination and our spirit nomatter how technologically or scientifically advanced we become.

Religion speaks to our sense of oneness with a larger community who shares our faith, emphasizes our belongingness to that group and provides us with a crucially important identity.

It allows us to symbolically express our feelings, including feelings of anger, injustice and even hatred.

Anyone who has read the Psalms of David knows how powerfully this religious poetry enters into the human psyche and allows us to divest ourselves of all our negative inner feelings, as well as celebrate the positive ones.

The feelings of hatred are natural to us.  Acting on them is not.

The real danger of any religious ideology is how it bridges legitimate feelings with illegitimate actions.

Those of us who have long discarded the validity of the religious enterprise as an expression of less developed human historical times are shocked to find how powerful the religious imagination is.  

After all, it was an extreme religious ideology that toppled the twin towers of the World Trade Centre.

It is to religion and spirituality that so many are now turning to for solace in our vulnerability, for a lessening of the incessant internal pain they must bear, and for a sense of some meaning to what is so eminently senseless.

Some have said that September 11 has changed us forever.  They are right.  

But the change involved is not in how much more airport and national security we will now need in order to feel safe again.

The change has to do with the fundamentally religious experiences of vulnerability, bearing one another's pain and feeling ourselves to be an integral part of a community in a way that we never have before.

It is that kind of inner strength that continues to inspire a nation.  It is that kind of spirituality that alone will counter the evil of ideologies that have historically always been defeated by the power of God acting in the human heart and soul.

Dr. Alexander Roman  alex@unicorne.org