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Christians Deal With Language of Martyrdom
By BRIAN MURPHYFri Mar 31, 2:35 PM ET
After the al-Qaida leader in Saudi Arabia was killed by security forces, his supporters issued a message hailing him as a martyr. A week earlier, Christian groups used the same word for an American peace campaigner whose body was found in Baghdad.
The statements reflect how the West's struggle with radical Islam is creeping into views of religious martyrdom. Some Christians seem ready to embrace the connotations of "victim" and "hero" that have driven extremist Muslim declarations, with each side portraying the other faith as a persecutor.
"Each time Islamic radicals speak of suicide bomber 'martyrs,' for example, it reverberates in Christianity," said Jonathan Bartley, co-director of Ekklesia, a London-based group that examines religious and social trends.
Christians match those claims by citing activists and clergy killed by Muslims. "There's a radicalization of what martyrdom means by some Christian groups," Bartley said. "They focus heavily on the idea of a clash of civilizations."
It's a conflict that's enhanced by the Internet and its ability to instantly spread viewpoints.
Dozens of Christian Web sites and blogs including some with critical opinions of Islam have used "martyr" to describe peace activist Tom Fox of Clear Brook, Va., whose bullet-ridden body was found March 10, more than three months after he was abducted by a group calling itself Swords of Righteousness Brigades. His three colleagues from Christian Peacemaker Teams were freed March 23 in a U.S.-British raid.
The peacemaker teams appealed to Christians not to use Fox's death as a rallying cry against Muslims. "We ask that everyone set aside inclinations to vilify or demonize others, no matter what they have done," CPT said in a statement.
In February, an even wider outpouring followed the slaying of an Italian Roman Catholic priest, the Rev. Andrea Santoro, who was shot as he prayed in his church on Turkey's Black Sea coast. Some reports have suggested the suspected gunman, a 16-year-old boy, was motivated by the protests against caricatures of Prophet Muhammad.
The Vatican's top diplomat to Turkey, Archbishop Antonio Lucibello, mourned Santoro as a "new martyr for this millennium."
In recent years, Christian groups increasingly have used martyrdom to describe other cases, too, including the 2004 slaying of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh and the victims of major terrorist attacks.
"There's a growing belief in a Muslim jihad against Christians," said Jeremy Sewell, policy analyst for International Christian Concern, a Silver Spring, Md.-based group that tracks claims of Christian persecution. "That definitely shapes the dialogue on who is considered a martyr."
In Islam, stories of martyrdom date back to bloodshed as the faith took root in the seventh century. It became increasingly linked to radical movements in the 20th century with calls for "martyrdom" by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and later with Palestinian militants and terrorist groups.
The end of the Cold War brought Christian-Muslim tensions into sharper focus, including inter-religious clashes in Indonesia and the 1996 murder of seven French monks in Algeria by Islamic militants.
While such cases are always shocking, Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Sant'Egidio lay movement in Rome, worries that concepts of Christian martyrdom may be drifting toward a "counter-punch" to Islamic radicals.
"Would someone who goes out to retaliate against Islamic terrorism be worthy of being called a martyr? The answer is no. The Christian martyr does not desire death or seek it for others," said Riccardi, who wrote a book on martyrdom.
Some Christian groups particularly conservative evangelicals are quick to "use the language of martyrdom" to reinforce suspicions about Islam, said Elizabeth Castelli, an associate professor of religion at Barnard College who studies the issue.
"The point isn't that (Muslim) suicide bombers, for example, really 'are' or 'are not' martyrs," Castelli said. "The point is that people revere them as martyrs.
"For some Christians, the defining characteristic of their identity as Christians is 'to be persecuted.' Hence, for some, one isn't really a Christian unless one is at risk of martyrdom."
Most denominations agree that "martyr" fits the early Christians who died for their faith, but its grows more complex after that. Many Christians also suffered at the hands of fellow Christians during the Inquisition, Protestant Reformation and other periods. Some churches and others broadly define martyrdom as any Christian who is believed killed for their religious convictions, which can extend to figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. and anti-apartheid fighter Stephen Biko.
Missionary groups today usually estimate 200 million Christians are under some form of persecution around the world.
At the funeral of Santoro, the papal vicar for Rome, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, said "all the elements of Christian martyrdom" were present. Ruini also expressed hope of eventual sainthood for Santoro.
But the momentum behind Santoro's case has even unsettled some in the Vatican. If the suspected killer was mentally unbalanced or acting for criminal motives, it could seriously undermine the campaign for martyrdom.
An editorial in Italy's influential Corriere Della Sera newspaper warned of rushing to judgment "in a poisoned atmosphere" in which many see "an Islamic siege on the entire Christian world."
"It's easy in this climate," the editorial said, "to fall into the trap of the 'war of civilizations.'"
gop_jeff said:Someone who is killed because of his religion is a martyr.
Someone who kills himself because of his religion is either a) an idiot, or b) Muslim.
