Martyrdom

I just finished watching The Mission, a 1986 movie with Robert De Niro, Jeremy Irons, and even a young Liam Neeson (on a brief side note...Liam...such a cool name. If only my last name wasn't "Leigh"...Aiden might have been named Liam, but "Liam Leigh" just doesn't sound quite right...its short for William, so its still a possibility, but I dunno...).

This was a good movie. If you haven't seen it and don't want to know anything about it...stop reading. Now. I am not responsible for spoiling the movie after this point.

Briefly, it takes place in the context of the 18th century, and the Jesuits in South America are fighting with Portugal and Spain over the territory of their missions in the new world. In the process, the stories of two very different men are told. One, a Jesuit Priest (Irons) who founded the newest mission in the midst of Indians who had martyred one of his fellow Jesuits at the very beginning of the movie. The other (De Niro) is a mercenary and a slaver who evenutally becomes a Jesuit. As the conflict comes to a climax, and the missions are to be destroyed and the Indians must flee or be enslaved or killed, the question arises between these two men...what is the appropriate response for Godly men to this problem.

The Priest says to love. The Mercenary says to fight. Both men die. The Priest leads the Indians that don't fight (mostly women and children) in worship until they are gunned down at they sings praises. The Mercenary fights to the end, and gets himself killed trying to save children from the slaughter.

Now, clearly, one question this movies asks is on the nature of love and mercy and justice. Before the final conflict, the Priest denies his blessing to the Mercenary, saying that if "Might makes Right, then perhaps there is no place for Love in this earth". That is a huge question...is there no relation between love and might? But I digress. More directly stated (and more central to the inspiration of this post) is the question of martyrdom.

What does it mean to be a martyr?

Honestly, this story, like the story of Jim Elliot and Nate Saint, makes me wonder where the line is between martyrdom and suicide. Is there a line at all, or is martyrdom merely sanctioned suicide? You allow yourself to die as a martyr, though you might have avoided that end by making different choices along the way...how do we know those choices are the right ones?

Are you a martyr when you stand for your faith and die as a result? Would that disqualify the Mercenary, who did not stand to meet his death, but fought back, as a martyr?

Are you a martyr when you choose to choose death? If you could avoid death without tainting your testimony...should you? Clearly, the message a man sends when he relinquishes freely that which we prize above all other things (the brief period here we call life) is powerful...and even if he could survive without tainting his testimony, the echo of the martyr's message is often more powerful than the words he spoke while alive.

This sparks an internal debate within me...

I have to wonder how we can justify chosing the time and place of our deaths? I know this might be simplifying the issue...but it seems to me that men that *choose* to become martyrs are skipping a step...isn't that supposed to be something forced on them?

I counter myself, saying that they aren't "choosing death", but merely choosing to accept it as it comes.

That is true, I tell myself. Yet when you willingly go the place of death, or when you walk out to be shot at...aren't you choosing deliberately to die?

Still, I come back again, did Paul choose death or obedience? He went to Jerusalem, despite direct warnings that in so doing he would ultimately end his life. Surely his martyrdom was pure service to Christ, not tainted with personal ambition. Neither was it suicide--he died in service to God.

I think the bold "me" is more convincing than the italic "me".

This reminds me of the discussion of courage from Laches. "What is courage? Is it courage when you feel no fear?"

Is it martyrdom when you need not die? Or is that what makes it martyrdom? Is it, by its very nature, a unnecessary sacrifice for something greater than your own life? Is this difficult quality the thing that separates it from other sacrificial deaths, such as those that die in battle for others?

I thought a lot about this while studying at Torrey Berkeley in the Summer of 2004 and reading Foxe's Book of Martyrs. Its a good question, I think, to think on.