The closest I have ever come to martyrdom or being martyred is when as a youth I felt bad about something, and a non-sympathetic sibling said, “Oh, you poor martyr,” as I was patted on the head. I have been so fortunate in my life to have always had work to provide for my family, shelter over my head and more than plenty to eat. That is not to say I haven’t had any personal, social, religious, and work related conflicts to level out, because I have had several of them, none of which, however, were battles that were life threatening or had any permanent effect or even life threatening ultimatums. I have never had to stand before an executioner and be threatened with either deny my faith or suffer death. When I think of Christ’s time, or of the crusade period, or of the cruelty of the dark or middle ages, I cringe to think of how careful a person had to be, lest they offend and be thrown in prison or even executed. The dark ages returned in the early 1900’s when the Bolsheviks, the Nazis, the Rising Sun of Japan and then Communists Chinese and other Far Eastern areas threatened the world with cruel revolutions. To them, “you’re either with us or against us.” Against equals prison or death.
During the dark ages, the Muslim hoards threatened to take over the world. Today, some of them pose a different kind of threat with their suicide bombings and threats of Sharia Law revolutions. Some African nations are now threatened with Muslim revolutions, cruel murders, raping of the innocent and the starving of families. There are different ways of looking at martyrs and martyrdom. Many who have suffered and even died during one of the many threats mentioned above, were people who were just ‘in the way.’ Those who are identified as martyrs for their cause actually had to have represented the opposition, those who refused to change their religion, philosophy or politics.
There are, and always have been, cruel and power hungry despots in the world, those who are willing to kill an individual and even massacre the masses to obtain their desired results. It is hard for good and decent people to believe that anyone or group could be so cruel, but history testifies of it in nearly every generation. The Jews living in Germany during the nineteen thirties, when Hitler was just coming into power, would never have believed that he could persuade a whole nation to believe that they, the Jews, should actually be annihilated. The propaganda, at first, was suggestive, and it became more and more common and harsh. Soon the Jews were forced to walk in the gutter, as opposed to the sidewalk, and then they could only live in a certain designated area of the city. When the nation was convinced that they were inferior, they were freighted off to camps, where they were starved, and forced to submit to all kinds of cruel treatment and eventual execution.
Can a human being today who lives in a civilized country understand how that could happen in another so-called civilized nation? There are many examples of thousands, and even millions, of human beings martyred because of their religions or political slant. The German people were not born with hatred for the Jewish people. They were taught it! Some say that a few killers were born with evil in their heart, but I cannot believe that. Evil and hate are learned attributes, usually grown out of the cruelty one may have experienced in their home or at the playground of life. Babies coming from their pre-earth life, come innocent and full of love. In the musical “South Pacific,” there is a song: “They have to be taught, carefully taught.”
The series, ‘Criminal Minds,’ demonstrates from time to time, how a serial killer starts out with a relatively mild cruel act, and then his capacity for cruelty tends to expand until he has no sympathy or human pity left to control his urges. An individual can eventually train their thinking to believe that what they are doing is somehow justified. In some cases, it apparently becomes enjoyable to watch another suffer pain and die. The inconceivable becomes conceivable.
I believe that it has been necessary, historically, for a person to become a martyr to verify his testimony and to certify that his cause was just. For to be willing to die for your beliefs is the ultimate testimony. I can think of only one case where martyrdom was absolutely essential; that was the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. His death was part of the Father’s plan from before the world was. It was a necessary act of love for us, so that the universal law of justice would have been satisfied, so that mercy could be shown, mercy for us. He died that we might live and that eternally.
In most cases of martyrdom, most of us might rationally say, wouldn’t it be better to live and verbally testify in behalf of their cause? To show by evidence and by example the truth of their convictions? There are those, who through identity, are victimized, but a true martyr is identified by standing as a witness to his convictions. For Stephen, Abinadi, and the early Apostles and all those Christians who were hung on crosses during the Roman era, couldn’t there have been a different result somehow? The answer, of course, is there could have been, if! If they had been willing to deny their faith in the Savior. They were unwilling to do that. We, who are Christians, today, have to ask ourselves, if we were given the same ultimatum would we deny the Christ or would we, too, have become a martyr? God help us to learn to love as the Savior loved, that is to love our neighbors as ourselves and to be charitable always. And, if possible, try to avoid those kinds of ultimatums that are mentioned above!