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Where Have All the Martyrs Gone?

The recent controversy surrounding the fate of Abdul Rahman, accused of converting from Islam to Christianity, a capital offense, in Afghanistan begs a serious question in contemporary Christianity. To some it might be the title at the head but it is the question behind the question I find more interesting. In the entire history of Christianity there has been an almost unrelenting parade of martyrs. From Stephen, the first Christian martyr to modern martyrs like Jim Eliot and Nate Saint, subjects of the recent film End of the Spear, ours has been a history of individuals willing to give their lives for a cause greater than their own lives.

Most of the martys in the 2,000 year history of Christianity were individuals who were willing to pay the ultimate price for their convictions and beliefs. They were willing to suffer beatings, imprisonment, exile and even most cruel death for such issues as whether or not they were willing to be baptized a certain way or give a verbal assent to a creedal statement. So where are today's martyrs?

The initial answer is that persecution in the world is politically and socially unteneable in all but the most totalitarian of regimes. Only a monster would kill his own people for something as esoteric as their beliefs and religious practices in today's politically correct climate. But a more thorough investigation may turn up other reasons for the loss of Christian martyrs. Or perhaps not. The same culture that is likely to express political and social disapproval of persecution is just as likely to express the same disapproval for individuals willing to hold views worth being martyred for. So the question is not "Where have they gone?" but instead, "Is there anyone who holds their faith so passionately that they would be willing to die for it?"

Our current consumerist Christianity and culture of church shopping for the congregation that has the best audience appeal places so little emphasis on beliefs and convictions that few people look for a church based on what they believe. Doctrinal differences are seen as divisive and so they are downplayed to the point where few, if any, churches contain congregations that are committed to the core beliefs of their denominations. American Christians are unlikely to persecute others because of their beliefs about baptism or unwillingness to submit to the authority of the pope, but they are just as unlikely to make such issues worthy of life-and-death commitment.

It is hard to imagine the Southern Baptist Convention being willing to die over the issue of baptism or the Presbyterian Church in America willing to relocate whole congregations to unsettled, inhospitable territory for the cause of ecclesiology. While state-sanctioned persecution like the Spanish Inquisition is inconceivable today, a less appreciated extinction is the Christian martyr. It is difficulty to imagine any kind of commitment to high-stakes Christianity that drove men like William Tyndale to the stake for the cause of translating the Bible into the vernacular language of his day. Americans hold their tenets so loosely that it is nearly impossible to come up with a cause that Christians would be willing to sacrifice their livelihoods, homes, families and even lives to promote.

The same political correctness that anathematizes a mentality that fosters persecution is the one that makes the existence of martyrs just as anachronistic. The live-and-let-live outlook that refuses to condemn the erroneous beliefs others also refuses to stand with conviction and finality for its own beliefs. We may applaud the loss of persecution and need for martyrdom, but we should grieve the loss of a faith of our fathers that is worth dying for.