What is in Kelvin's Head?

We should be wary of declaring martyrs

08/04/2015

One of the themes that has been emerging over the last few weeks is the desire to recognise people who have been killed by terrorists as martyrs. However, we should pause and ask whether that’s really the most appropriate language to be using.

The Archbishop of Canterbury was eager to do this in his Easter sermons and there are reports of the Pope speaking of the Kenyan students who were killed last week as modern Christian martyrs though I’ve not been able to track down the verbatim comment myself.

Two incidents in particular seem to be being recalled in this rush to declare people as martyrs for Christ. Firstly the massacre of Coptic men on a Libyan beach some weeks ago and secondly the killing of students in Kenya in Holy Week. In the case of the Copts, it is reported that many of them died with the name of Jesus Christ on their lips. In the case of the Kenyans, there are reports that they were killed because, being Christians they were unable to recite or answer questions on certain portions of the Qur’an. Both are despicable incidents.

Having travelled in Egypt, I don’t find it hard to see how or why the Coptic church lost no time at all in declaring the murdered men to be martyrs. Everywhere you go in Egypt there is a martyrdom cult amongst Christians there. The Coptic church has known its troubles through the centuries and many, many people were killed witnessing to their faith in the past. To a certain degree, the Coptic church has the strength it has because of its history of persecution, particularly during the time of the Emperor Diocletian – yes, right back to the third century after Christ.

It may be technically correct to refer to at least some of those who died as martyrs – they witnessed under duress to Christ even unto death. However something about all of this makes me uncomfortable.

To make martyrdom the dominant rhetoric surrounding these killings is to risk losing the opportunity to unite a diverse world against these killings.

I’m not sure that it is martyrdom to be killed for not knowing a particular verse of the Qur’an. That doesn’t make it any the less wicked an act either.

I find myself listening to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s sermon and asking what would be wrong in describing these acts primarily as crimes against humanity? Don’t we need to build an ever growing consensus amongst religious and non-religious alike that such acts are irrefutably wrong?

To speak of martyrdom risks adopting those who have died into a vulgar sectarian mentality where my dead are holier than your dead.

We need to remember that Christianity is not the only religion to speak of martyrs and most of the talk of martyrdom in recent years has come from those who wish others harm for their own radical extremist ends.

It is impossible to put oneself into these situations. Yet I find myself wondering whether if I were facing death in this way I’d prefer the focus to be not on my personal entry into heaven nor upon my own individual faith – however dear that is to me, but upon building a world where such acts become inconceivable. There must also be a place for international work on ensuring that appropriate pathways to justice are available in new and previously unforeseen situations where para-state institutions commit what would otherwise be called warcrimes.

These acts are primarily crimes and vile and horrific crimes. Christians should lose no opportunity to present them as such and leave God to work out the religious significance or otherwise of such wicked acts.

7 responses to “Whither the Kirk?”

Pausing Place

25/08/2010

I missed last night’s programme, but I thought your comments were interesting.

In a sense, perhaps it’s unsurprising if the SEC is inwardly more positive about itself than the CofS. My take is that in the recent past, at least, the SEC started from a lower common denominator, not being the “local” church in the same way as the Kirk, and so it doesn’t have to contend with others saying of it “look how the mighty have fallen” in quite the same way.

As to the health of the Kirk (and the SEC for that matter), I think we need to reflect on our self-perception and to consider carefully the points and places in which a dying church (congregation or denomination) should be allowed to die gracefully, and the ways in which we might see new life emerge from the rubble.

As a young(ish!), relatively new Christian I have seen examples of (both urban and rural) SEC and Kirk congregations where there are few signs of new growth, little to draw in younger (under 50 year olds, to pick a random-ish number) new folk, and much to sustain negative preconceptions of church as boring, irrelevant and so forth.

We as a faith community need to get much better at stepping up to the mark in our creativity and engagement with our society. The sad truth is that most young adults do not know and have not heard about Jesus Christ, and unless we engage with them in ways culturally relevant to them, and which do not presuppose previous knowledge (too often taken for granted) they never will.

It troubles me, but I do think it’s true to say that in the SEC and in the Kirk we have a church sustained by the traditions and cultural reference points taught to a previous generation. Culture has shifted radically, with the result that the same will not be able to be said in 20 years time.

Our challenge is clear. Whether the Kirk and the SEC can step up to the mark to address what it means to live out the Great Commission in the 21st century is less so.

Reply
Cal

25/08/2010

I didn’t really understand who this programme was aimed at, or even what its aim was.

Yes, numbers have fallen, but perhaps the small number of people who remain are there because they actually want to be, not because it’s the done thing on a Sunday morning.

And personally, I rather like the idea of a church “sustained by traditions”. Clearly the church has to be relevant to modern society, but in abandoning the traditions of worship then you lose the centre of why the church exists in the first place.

There was something very Presbyterian about the programme with its “we’re doomed” mentality. I find the SEC generally more positive in outlook.

Reply
John

25/08/2010

The only book the presenter seemed to have used in his research was ‘The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation 1800-2000’ By Callum G Brown – indeed Callum Brown was one of the speakers. The thesis of this well argued sociological study is that “quite suddenly in 1963 something very profound ruptured the character of the nation and its people sending organised Christianity on a downward spiral to the margins of social significanceâ€. That something he identifies as new media, new gender roles and a moral revolution which has dramatically ended peopleâ€™s conception that they lived Christian lives.â€ It could be said to have happened as â€œsex beganâ€ between the end of the Chatterly ban and the Beatles first LP as the poet Philip Larkin so famously put it.”
To balance this statistical decline the programme flagged up some of the “church without walls ” iniatives in a lame sort of way. All in all a most unsatisfactory programme that only told half the story.

Reply
Kenny

25/08/2010

Good crit Kelvin. My reflection at the end of the programme was, “Lord, we visited this stuff over 30 years ago, and have come out of it stronger and better Church in the SEC.” Hopefully, we stopped longing for ‘the good old days’ a long time ago!

Reply
MartinRitchie

26/08/2010

I thinking “Pausing Place” makes a good point about needing to creatively engage with society. From my own experience of working with a CofS congregation, this creative engagement is a weak spot for many.

As a counterpoint to the programme, interesting to note in the latest “Life and Work” a very positive article about a growing CofS congregation in Stornoway – and I mean really growing! So not all doom and gloom, and I’m sure there are many more examples of bright spots, just as there are in the SEC!

Reply
Graham Vahey

28/08/2010

If the C of S disappeared completely we would be at a loss. During the dark and bleak years of Thatcher’s reign she refused to visit Scotland for 5 years. When she did she expressed shock that we had Royal Regalia and ordered it to be removed immediately for safe-keeping to England. Her ‘Sermon on the Mound’ is now historical for its condescension to the Scots. She was none too pleased to be handed two reports on poverty in Scotland by the powerful Church and Nation Committee. Indeed, it was to this Committee that the population turned to for a moral lead during Thatcherism. When James VI (‘Jamie the Saxt’) became James I in England, the population turned to senior Scottish earls for a moral lead. Unfortunately, the Piskie Church does not give a moral lead in Scotland, apart from the work of the Scottish Constitutional Convention in the recent past. The RC Church does pronounce on moral issues. Could it not be conceivable that all the major Churches could unite in a Committee to pronounce for Scotland on moral issues as the Church & Nation Committee once did?

Reply
Aldous N. Gaiters

01/09/2010

Speaking as a Nonjuror myself I am sure the SEC has a right to a moral voice in Scotland. Taking the US daughter church of the SEC as a model you could see where the fissures would appear. There is room for a modern liberal Christian voice, but even I an old Liberal myself, would have to fear that such a voice might appeal to only a select few.

Reply