I can’t imagine anyone I know being a martyr today. Can you?
Well, that’s not true. I can think of one, maybe two people who I think, push come to shove, would lay down their life for their beliefs. Or, better yet, to fight for them.
I don’t just mean religious beliefs either. Any sort of deeply held conviction. I don’t know that people have those anymore. Not around here anyways. Maybe in other parts of the world. It’s telling that people don’t even understand the concept. I was listening to a lecture in a psychology class, and someone, in response to the professor stating something along the lines of “there are no non-selfish actions” brought up martyrs and martyrdom. The professor was sort of at a loss. He mumbled something about “preserving the ego” or whatever, but mostly he had no answer for it. Neither did the other students. The idea that you might believe something, to the point of being burned at the stake over it, well… modern people have trouble wrapping their minds around that. We don’t believe anything.
Truly.
We don’t believe one damned thing.
I don’t think that most people think about “Truth” or “What is true?” Most people, when they hear something, think rather, “Will people like me if I agree with this?” Or, perhaps they think the opposite, “Will people not like me if I agree with this?” Whether or not a thing is true doesn’t, I think, enter into a lot of people’s heads. Whether or not a thing is good enters into their heads even less. People are herd animals I suppose. Perhaps this has always been true. Maybe nobody has ever really believed anything. In my darker moments that’s what I think. In my darker moments I think that all the Christian piety of the middle ages and all the mantras of the Buddhists and all the devotion of the Muslims has been naught but peer pressure. Conformity. People going along, for no other reason than to get along.
But what about the martyrs.
What about them.
Martyrs of all faiths are a source of hope to me because they are the one example of genuine faith I can’t easily refute. My own faith is such a fragile thing, blown hither and yon by the winds of circumstance, it is comforting to me to know that there have been those who never wavered. Even at the point of the sword.
That’s important.
It’s important because there needs to be something real in all this. “All this” being our human lives I mean. I couldn’t bear it if I believed that we were all just play acting, all the time. I couldn’t bear it if, in the end, it turned out that all we were really doing was just engaging in social memes to get resources. Mouthing platitudes to further our social standing. Being trendy to fit in. Something needs to matter to somebody. I’m convinced of that. Something needs to matter to somebody.
Hard to believe though. Except for the martyrs everyone else can be explained away. People explain away their own beliefs all the time. I can count on one hand the number of times I saw somebody stand up against something they believed was wrong at work. And there are lots of things wrong at work too by the way. Everybody’s work. Shady business dealings are rampant. Whole industries are just devoted to scamming people. I think banks and hospitals are the worst offenders, personally. Insurance agencies being a close second. Nobody ever stands up and says, “Hey… should we be doing this? Is this okay? Is this right?” Paycheck too important. Everybody’s soul’s for sale. I commented once that “If your soul has a price, however high it might be, the Devil will eventually come along and cut you a deal.” My friend, the wealthiest man I’ve ever known and an owner of several large businesses, replied, “Everybody’s got a price. They just may not know it.”
Maybe he’s right.
Maybe I have a price too. I hope not but, who knows. I haven’t been offered just a whole lot to test the hypothesis that I don’t. In my own lifetime I’ve watched everyone change and sell out on their “deeply held convictions” over and over again. If they hold position A today, they will swap without hesitation to position B if A becomes even momentarily unpopular. They have a price. Everybody has a price. Nothing matters. Nobody believes anything.
Except maybe the martyrs.
Thank God for the martyrs.
Your beliefs don’t really matter if they never cause you problems. I’m not saying you gotta go be killed for them or anything but, if what you believe never causes the slightest bit of friction in your life, you can very safely assume you don’t really believe it. You mouth the words. You may even fool yourself into thinking you believe it. But, you don’t. If every single time you’re presented the choice between social discomfort and denying your convictions, you choose denying your convictions, then they aren’t anything. You aren’t anything. Your beliefs are built on sand. There’s nobody home inside you. You’re a pillar of salt.
Doesn’t mean your bad. No. Like most people you’re probably very pleasant to hang out with. That is, after all, your main goal. To make other people find you pleasant to be around. To fit in. But it does mean there’s no there there. You’re an empty vessel, waiting to be filled with whatever new popular ideology comes along. It would maybe be better to not pretend to have beliefs in that case. At least then you’d be being more honest, yeah? The Satanist. The Luciferian. Those people who explicitly say that they believe in no moral absolutes, are they not in some sense better people than all those who pretend? What did Jesus say? “I wish that you were hot or cold. The lukewarm I will spit out of my mouth.” See, Judas is more despicable than Satan because he pretended to be one thing but when push came to shove he was another. At least with Satan you know what you’re getting. Betrayed his friend, for money no less, and not just a ton of it either. If you do the math 30 pieces of silver comes out to around 200 bucks today. I believe it. I think most people in the world right now would sell their souls for less. If it wasn’t for the martyrs I’d have no hope in humanity at all. I’d have no hope for myself either.
That hope, that dim hope, that maybe, one day, I would care about something enough to actually see it through, to the bitter end if need be. Well, I guess that’s the same thing as hoping one day I might really be in love. True love. The selfless kind that knows no bounds. I’m not certain I’m capable of it. Maybe I am. The martyrs give me hope anyway.
In any case the world turns on and things continue to fall apart. They always do. Maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s how things are supposed to be. Maybe you can’t know if your faith is worth a dime until it’s all you have left. I’m not sure. In some sense then maybe martyrdom is a gift. The martyrs got to know that they really loved something. They got the gift of first hand knowledge that true love is real.
Hard to beat when you put it that way.
As for you my reader, I will leave you with a blessing reminiscent of one the Vikings used to share:
May God grant you a good death.
In the end that’s all we can hope for. To prove by our passing that something mattered.
I remember reading and loving Foxe's book of Martyrs. When I talked to other Christians about it and how inspiring I found it they just sort of cringed. Isn't that strange?
The last part was very beautiful. Nothing like a good viking death. AIthough I have not met mine yet.