What is a Martyr?
“God is good and we have met Him.”
–The Martyrs of the Christian Fraternity
Some have insisted that in order for a situation to be considered martyrdom, the persecutor needs to have singled out individuals or groups exclusively because of their Christian faith. International Catholic journalist John Allen, Jr., calls this a “myth.”
He states that “to grasp whether there was a religious or Christian component to a given incident, we need to understand not only why someone committed the act but also why the target was in a position where it could happen.”
He illustrates this with the story of the 40 Catholic seminarians who were murdered in Burundi in 1997. Their school was known as a refuge from the Hutu-Tutsi violence that plagued the region. They organized themselves around the doctrine of Christian fraternity in their resistance of ethnic driven animosity. When ordered by a Hutu rebel group to identify themselves as Hutu or Tutsi, they refused in an act of deliberate Christian witness.
The rebels did not kill them explicitly because they were Catholic, but because of their defiance—yet this defiance was grounded in, and inseparable from, their Catholic convictions.
OPEN DOORS
In contrast, Open Doors uses a different definition of martyrdom which severely limits who may be called a martyr. Their definition means that the 5 killed in 1956 by the Auca Indians, or even the recent martyrdom of John Chau would not be considered Christian martyrs. I believe this definition is too limiting. Here is how Open Doors defines martyrdom:
The short version of the Open Doors definition is “any hostility experienced as a result of one’s identification with Christ. This can include hostile atitudes, words, and actions toward Christians. This broad definition includes (but is not limited to) restrictions, pressure, discrimination, opposition, disinformation, injustice, intimidation, mistreatment, marginalization, oppression, intolerane, infringement, violation, ostracism, hostilities, harassment, abuse, violence, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.”
CSGC
The Center for the Study of Global Christianity has a different definition of martyrdom, which leads to drastically higher numbers of martyrs in contrast to Open Doors. However, it is more inclusive of the types of situations Christ-followers are in, similar to Paul.
Christian martyrs are defined as “Believers in Christ who have lost their lives prematurely, in situations of witness, as a result of human hostility.” (Excerpted from the Center for Study of Global Christianity, "Counting Martyr Methodology")
TEISZEN
Charles Teiszen’s book on persecution and his definition seems very helpful. The brief version is “Any unjust action of mild to intense levels of hostility, directed at Christians of varying levels of commitment, resulting in varying levels of harm, which may not necessarily prevent or limit these Christian’s ability to practice their faith or appropriately propagate their faith as it is considered from the victim’s perspective, each motivation having religion, namely the identification of its victims as ‘Christian’ as its primary motivator.”
Words matter…
In an age when American Evangelicals have what Alan Noble calls, “The Evangelical Persecution Complex” (Atlantic, August, 2014), it’s important to use words carefully and define what we mean. Not everything is persecution. Some things are criticisms. However, I suspect there are far more martyrs than Open Doors reports, and far less than the CSGC reports. Either way, the persecution of Christ followers in the majority world is severe and approaching genocidal proportions.
”Almighty God, you call your witnesses from every nation and reveal your glory in their lives. Make us thankful for the example of the Martyrs of the Christian Fraternity of Burundi, and strengthen us by their example, that we, like them, may be faithful in the service of your kingdom, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
–Celebrating Common Prayer, 489.
Dictionary of African Christian Biography - The Martyrs of the Christian Fraternity
African Saints: Saints, Martyrs, and Holy People from the Continent of Africa, copyright © 2002 by Frederick Quinn, Crossroads Publishing Company, New York, New York. All rights reserved.
