For political and literary theorists working on race, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is a canonical text. Most political theorists approach the novel through what this essay calls a “martyr reading,” though martyrdom is just one of several political strategies explored in the work. This essay highlights an alternative in Ellison’s repertoire. The “trickster reading” developed here better accounts for several key scenes in the novel and also shows the limits of martyrdom as a technique of democratic politics. While (...) other democratic theorists have identified Ellison with redemptive or deliberative aims, the novel’s references to Homer’s Odyssey, with its own trickster-hero, license a trickster reading of Invisible Man. Tricksters do not take on suffering, loss, or sacrifice in the hope of redemption nor are they necessarily committed to the virtues of deliberation. Instead, they evade sacrifice by resorting routinely to irony, cunning, and refusal. This reading demonstrates the importance of these techniques to Ellison’s vision and to our politics today. (shrink)

The book deals with martyrdom understood as a philosophical category. The main question pertains to the evidential value of the Christian witness through death. The author approaches an answer through a philosophical interpretation of the belief in the evidential role of martyrdom. Numerous historical documents confirm that ancient martyrdom might have been considered as a kind of proof also by people unaffiliated with the Church. The author observes the theology and the reality of martyrdom through the (...) perspective of the ancient philosophy of death and radical personal transformation. He believes that the Christian stance in the face of persecutions could have been understood as the realization of the unrealized ambitions of philosophy, thereby proving indirectly the veracity of the teaching revealed by Jesus Christ. (shrink)

Martyrdom has played and continues to play a dominant role in the religious imagination of many. Jews and Christians alike conceive of their martyrs as exceptional people of faith who express exceptional love and devotion to God. The purpose of this paper is to explore some of the conceptual features of martyrdom by virtue of which it has its role and to show, using those very features and using Simone Weil's observations, that martyrdom cannot mark the logical (...) climax of the believer's love of God. (shrink)

This article is organized around the idea that the concept of sacrifice gains meaning within the context of cosmic war. Cosmic war is understood as arising out of religious traditions in terms of an intimate and ultimate tension, as Durkheim pointed out, between the sacred and the profane. This fundamental dichotomy gives rise to images of a great encounter between cosmic forces—order versus chaos, good versus evil, truth versus falsehood—that worldly struggles mimic. Thus the idea of cosmic war is compelling (...) to religious activists because it ennobles and exalts those who consider themselves a part of it—especially those in desperate situations and who organize defiantly in resisting them. In that sense the concept is not just an effort at delegitimization but at dehumiliation: it provides escape from humiliating and impossible predicaments for those who otherwise would feel immobilized by them. By mapping the relationship between religious traditions, cosmic war, and sacrifice the paper animates the question as to why martyrdom is central to religion and the production of meaning. (shrink)

Themes of Christian martyrdom were central to popular political mobilization in El Salvador, as in much of Latin America, during the 1970s and 1980s. The story of Christ's sacrifice provided a powerful narrative for explaining injustice and political violence, a frame for interpretation as well as action during the twelve-year Salvadoran civil war, which ended in 1992 by a negotiated settlement. In the first part of this article we trace the politics of martyrdom and sacrifice through the war. (...) The final sections of the article examine the place of narratives of martyrdom and sacrifice in post-civil war El Salvador. While most Salvadorans today continue to experience high levels of inequality, poverty, and violence, the narratives of martyrdom and sacrifice that animated the revolutionary movements and liberation theology of the 1980s have lost much of their resonance. We suggest that the dispersion of both the perceived sources of, and the imagined solutions to, injustice contribute to the diminution in the importance of Christian narratives of martyrdom and sacrifice in El Salvador today. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

Can Martyrdom survive Secularization? is a survey of martyrdom in western society starting with the early Christian martyrs, and narrating its increasing politicization and secularization in more modern times. It argues that martyrdom is a two way street: the courage of men and women in the face of torture and death and the willingness of society to grant them the title of martyr. It recounts the careers of John Brown and his death on a Virginia gallows in (...) 1859, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his execution by the Nazis in 1945, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and the atomic bomb. The story ends with the advent of suicide bombers, the apparent reintroduction of religion as a motive and their role as a political weapon. (shrink)

Can Martyrdom survive Secularization? is a survey of martyrdom in western society starting with the early Christian martyrs, and narrating its increasing politicization and secularization in more modern times. It argues that martyrdom is a two way street: the courage of men and women in the face of torture and death and the willingness of society to grant them the title of martyr. It recounts the careers of John Brown and his death on a Virginia gallows in (...) 1859, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his execution by the Nazis in 1945, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and the atomic bomb. The story ends with the advent of suicide bombers, the apparent reintroduction of religion as a motive and their role as a political weapon. (shrink)

Lankford overgeneralizes individual psychology from limited, fragmentary and doubtful materials, and underplays strategic, ideological, and group dynamical factors. His speculative claims manifest a form of fundamental attribution error: the tendency – especially evident in popular attachment to moral presumptions of individual responsibility and volition – to overestimate effects of personality and underestimate situational effects in explaining social behavior. The book's appeal may owe more to ideological preference than to interests of science or national security.

This paper deals with the subject of self-sacrifice from an interdisciplinary perspective. Using various examples from different cultures and periods of history it will present aspects of the phenomenon of violent self-sacrifice in combat or with the occasion of suicide terrorist attacks, currents and movements familiar with these techniques through history; its psychological, moral and social background and above all, their impact and perception on the suicide terrorist's own society. It also includes, from a general, theoretical point of view, a (...) few methods and practices beneficial for fighting this phenomenon. (shrink)

The survival and significance of the Latin American liberation theology movement relies, to some extent, on the power of the narratives of martyrdom. Precisely by relying on these narratives, through the dynamics of the theological category of memory that leads to solidarity, liberation theology situates itself in the tension between modernity and postmodernity. The categories of narrative, memory and solidarity, which are at play in the whole dynamic of martyrdom, constitute a postmodern way of doing a modern liberation (...) theology. Liberation theology will only be able to retain its “liberative” and “theological” element insofar as it continues to be “modern” and “postmodern” at the same time. Against the postmodern disbelief in the possibility of human emancipation, liberation theology continues to labor precisely under principium liberationis grounded in the promise of liberation contained in God’s revelation in the Scriptures. However, against the “modern” conception of emancipation based on reason and governed by the idea of progress, liberation theology envisions liberation as an integral process which takes place in a concrete, particular historical reality and under the eschatological promise of God. Keywords: liberation theology, martyrdom, modern, postmodern, narrative, memory, solidarity. Abstrak: Relevansi dan pertumbuhan teologi pembebasan, sampai tingkat tertentu, juga bergantung pada kekuatan kisah kemartiran. Dengan mendasarkan diri pada kisah (narrative) yang diolah lewat kategori pengingatan (memory) yang mengarah pada solidaritas, teologi pembebasan menempatkan diri dalam tegangan antara modernitas dan posmodernitas. Kategori kisah, pengingatan, dan solidaritas, yang berada dalam jantung narasi kemartiran, mengetengahkan sebuah cara posmodern untuk melakukan teologi pembebasan yang modern. Teologi pembebasan hanya akan berhasil mempertahankan unsur “teologi” dan “pembebasan” sejauh bersifat modern dan posmodern pada saat yang sama. Melawan ketidakpercayaan posmodernitas terhadap kemungkinan proyek pembebasan, teologi pembebasan mempertahankan prinsip pembebasan atas dasar isi pewahyuan Allah dalam Kitab Suci. Akan tetapi, melawan pemahaman modern tentang pembebasan berdasarkan akalbudi dan kemajuan, teologi pembebasan memahami pembebasan sebagai sebuah proses integral yang terjadi dalam waktu dan tempat yang nyata, dalam realitas sejarah yang partikular dan dalam kerangka janji eskatologis Allah. Kata-kata kunci: teologi pembebasan, kemartiran, modern, posmodern, narasi, pengingatan, solidaritas. (shrink)

IN HIS NICOMACHEAN ETHICS, ARISTOTLE ARGUES THAT MOST DEATHS are contemptible and offer no opportunity for the exercise of virtue. Thomas Aquinas, on the other hand, considers the publicly shameful death of the martyr to be not only the highest exemplification of the virtue of courage but also the greatest proof of moral perfection more generally. What accounts for this substantial divergence from Aristotle on the possibility of virtuous action in death? This essay investigates the theologically informed metaphysical and anthropological (...) framework within which Aquinas situates his claims and then explores the implications of these claims for his broader ethical appropriation of Aristotelian virtue theory. It ultimately intends to show the extent to which Aquinas's conception of virtue depends upon a theological and specifically Christological understanding of human perfection. (shrink)

While refraining from merely reinscribing liberal hagiographies of Locke, this essay questions recent accounts of Locke as facilitator of an insidious subordination of church to state in the early modern period. Locke's defense of toleration and the claims of conscience represent the recovery of key aspects of Christian charity, not the subordination of church to state, and his conception of church membership as voluntary serves as a salutary reminder that loyalty cannot ultimately be coerced, but resides in a bond of (...) trust. While Locke's account of the church is inadequate and his attempt to separate civil and religious realms flounders, these flaws rested in part on problematic assumptions about the fundamentally otherworldly orientation of Christianity and thus the purely instrumental character of the church. These are assumptions shared with earlier Christian thinkers and hardly distinctively modern or liberal. (shrink)

This article explores the implications of the prevalence of suicide attacks or 'martyrdom operations' in contemporary Islam. Historical and legal precedents from Islam and Christianity are adduced for the analysis and placed within the context of radical Islam.

Against the backdrop of ancient, mediaeval and modern Catholic teaching prohibiting killing (the rule against killing), the question of assisted suicide and euthanasia is examined. In the past the Church has modified its initial repugnance for killing by developing specific guidelines for permitting killing under strict conditions. This took place with respect to capital punishment and a just war, for example. One wonders why in the least objectionable instance, when a person is already dying, suffering, and repeatedly requesting assistance in (...) dying, there is still such widespread condemnation of assisted suicide and euthanasia. In a Gedankexperiment, I suggest that certain stories of martyrdom in the history of the Christian Church shed some light on the role of taking one’s life, or putting one’s life in danger out of love. I further suggest that requesting assisted suicide and/or euthanasia from the motive of love of one’s family or care givers might possibly qualify as one instance of justifiable euthanasia, although I acknowledge that the Church will not be making changes in its stance any time soon. (shrink)

Religious martyrdom has grabbed centre stage in recent times. This has been due mainly to the activities of Muslim jihadists and other disaffected religious zealots who choose ‘martyrdom’ as a form of protest and a means of inflicting injury on their perceived enemies. Much work has been done on the Islamic fundamentalists, who epitomize contemporary martyrdom. Indeed, for the untutored, religious martyrdom appears to be limited to this group. In contrast to such an outlook, this paper (...) seeks to establish the Christian equivalent of contemporary Islamic martyrs. It attempts a broad characterization of different types of martyrdom, taking into account the martyrs of the past and our everyday use of the term ‘martyr’. It also explores different perspectives of the morality of martyrdom, especially the more popular self-martyrdom of contemporary times. It identifies self criminalization by religious functionaries as a form of ‘martyrdom’, especially given the perception of the members of the congregation and the influence that such self-criminalization has on society. It posits the immorality of self criminalization, especially given the high esteem in which society holds religious functionaries, and argues for the de-radicalization of religion. (shrink)

The Martyrdom of Polycarp narrates a martyrdom ‘according to the Gospel’. Numerous facets of the text echo the passion materials of the Gospels, and Polycarp is directly said to imitate Christ. Various scholars have discussed the imitatio Christi theme within the work. Such an approach focuses upon Christ as an exemplar of suffering to be imitated, through specific events of similar suffering. But the Christology of the Martyrdom of Polycarp is far richer than this focus alone. Jesus (...) Christ is also the Son, Savior, eternal high priest, teacher, elector, king, and alternative to Caesar. As the sovereign, he actively coordinates events and chooses martyrs from among his servants. (shrink)

This essay follows the assumption that the first principle of classical metaphysics has its counterpart in political sovereignty as suprema potestas. Therefore, both can be equally described as arché. Their epitome is the God of so-called ontotheology, who thus proves to be what I call the Ur-Arché. In contrast to current post-metaphysical approaches, however, I suggest overcoming ontotheology through a different metaphysics, which emphasizes the self-transcending surplus character of being. I regard early Christian martyrdom as an eminent way in (...) which the surplus of being is manifested. This has two interwoven aspects, one ontological and one political, both arising from the excessive idea of the Christ event, or the notion that there is life beyond life unto death. I will analyse the mechanism allowing early Christian martyrs to counteract Roman imperial sovereignty. Finally, I will relate this to contemporary life systems in which sovereignty has become anonymous biopower. (shrink)

The main purpose of the paper is to examine the question as to whether self-sacrifice is intrinsic to moral action. The conclusion is that though some moral deeds can be free of appreciable self-sacrifice, most of the time some degree of self-sacrifice is called for. The necessity is not conceptual but built into the lives of most people. The paper is especially interested in a person's refusal to go along with or actively cooperate with wrongdoing, even when there is some (...) risk; and positively giving assistance to those who are oppressed or persecuted, and again when there is some risk. Abstaining from violating the rights and entitlements of others is not enough to be moral, indispensable as it is. An important issue is what degree of self-sacrifice is called for, which, when not risked or endured, allows us to think that immorality has been committed. I follow the standard practice of distinguishing between moral heroism and moral obligation. Moral heroism is exemplified by Socrates who at risk to his life refused to cooperate with the unjust command of the Thirty to seize an innocent man and hand him over for execution. The paper holds that one's basic rights set the limits to the extent of self-sacrifice that one can be obliged to risk or endure. The first part of the paper is devoted to Socrates and to the way in which his moral heroism is not a model for the moral person's action, but rather an inspiration to think hard about what self-sacrifice is demanded, short of his. I locate in the golden rule, the precept that urges us "always to treat others as you would like them to treat you" , the best single moral precept. The second part of the paper is on the golden rule. But the precept must be revised somewhat in accordance with the limits on self-sacrifice set by the preservation of one's basic rights. The consequences of the golden rule for political involvement is also discussed. The paper also looks at self-denial, especially as it is taught by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Self-denial in its most extreme form counsels martyrdom or passive non-resistance and even cooperation with one's oppression. Thus, extreme self-denial is perhaps not a moral phenomenon at all, though in its less extreme forms, it is one of the best aspects of civilized life. There are undeniable affinities between self-sacrifice and self-denial. (shrink)

The main purpose of the paper is to examine the question as to whether self-sacrifice is intrinsic to moral action. The conclusion is that though some moral deeds can be free of appreciable self-sacrifice, most of the time some degree of self-sacrifice is called for. The necessity is not conceptual but built into the lives of most people. The paper is especially interested in a person's refusal to go along with or actively cooperate with wrongdoing, even when there is some (...) risk; and positively giving assistance to those who are oppressed or persecuted, and again when there is some risk. Abstaining from violating the rights and entitlements of others is not enough to be moral, indispensable as it is. An important issue is what degree of self-sacrifice is called for, which, when not risked or endured, allows us to think that immorality has been committed. I follow the standard practice of distinguishing between moral heroism and moral obligation. Moral heroism is exemplified by Socrates who at risk to his life refused to cooperate with the unjust command of the Thirty to seize an innocent man and hand him over for execution. The paper holds that one's basic rights set the limits to the extent of self-sacrifice that one can be obliged to risk or endure. The first part of the paper is devoted to Socrates and to the way in which his moral heroism is not a model for the moral person's action, but rather an inspiration to think hard about what self-sacrifice is demanded, short of his. I locate in the golden rule, the precept that urges us "always to treat others as you would like them to treat you", the best single moral precept. The second part of the paper is on the golden rule. But the precept must be revised somewhat in accordance with the limits on self-sacrifice set by the preservation of one's basic rights. The consequences of the golden rule for political involvement is also discussed. The paper also looks at self-denial, especially as it is taught by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Self-denial in its most extreme form counsels martyrdom or passive non-resistance and even cooperation with one's oppression. Thus, extreme self-denial is perhaps not a moral phenomenon at all, though in its less extreme forms, it is one of the best aspects of civilized life. There are undeniable affinities between self-sacrifice and self-denial. (shrink)

The Greek term mártyras carries the double meaning of witness and martyr. This paper invites an exploration of the relationship between these two concepts in the contexts of first century and contemporary Africa using the life of St Mark as a historical lens. The paper suggests that many Western authored histories of the Christian movement are distorted by a lack of attention to the Eastern and African expansion of the Church in the early centuries and that contemporary African Christians have (...) erroneously bought into this emaciated history and the theology to which it has given rise. Through an examination of various themes in the life, witness and death of St Mark, and the relationship between martyrdom and witness in African Christian history, the paper encourages a reappraisal of the African roots of Christianity as a rich source for contemporary discipleship in Africa and the universal Church. (shrink)

ABSTRACTDuring the second Intifada which started in 2000 and ended sometime in mid 2000s, Palestinian male and female martyrs used video testimonies, records and documents of death, using the first person pronoun so as to articulate their missions and justifications for carrying out their acts of martyrdom. This study, which focuses on Palestinian female martyrs’ video-testimonies, investigates the elusive relationship between martyrdom and witness. I contend that the female martyr is a witness to the Israeli occupation of Palestine (...) and to the oppression and dehumanisation to which Palestinians are subject. Palestinian female martyrs are also witnesses to Arab leaders’ weakness and their inability to defend Palestine. The act of martyrdom is a collective one, involving the martyr, the agent of narration and the audience. The audience, who bears witness to the martyr, is necessary for martyrdom to be recognised and to take place. I argue that the end of the martyr’s speech marks out her silence and her tra... (shrink)