(from June 1, 2015)

So… I don’t get the Christian Martyrs. Still. Even after converting wholeheartedly to Episcopal-flavored Christianity and spending the past semester in a Christian Ethics class at seminary – I just don’t. Perhaps it has to do with not coming from a life where my formative years were saturated with moral religious teachings… but I don’t really think so; I think that, much like my unpopular opinion on things like “America’s Funniest Home Videos” (that they’re not), and my lack of understanding about why most people find blood-and-gore movies entertaining (I can’t stomach them), the popular opinion is in the wrong. Or, OK… that’s judgy. Not wrong, per se, just… maybe a little left of plumb, to my way of thinking.

The basic premise for the martyrs is that they were willing to die for their faith – and sometimes that meant allowing their children to die for the parent’s faith as well (for a truly gruesome and horrific tale of this, look up Saint Sophia and her three daughters – but I did warn you about the gruesome and horrific part). And see, that’s where I draw the line. I’m not at all down with the idea of being so hooked on one myopic view of spirituality or religious doctrine that I would rather literally die than profess (in words or hollow actions) to not believe what I believe. Start with that. That’s bad enough and a senseless death, if you ask me (which, if you’re reading this, it’s presumed that you did, implicitly), but still… it’s your own death, your own life to throw away in order to make a point. But to teach your children, indoctrinate them at a young age in such a way that they unnecessarily end up dead because of your belief? I find that unconscionable.

Fanaticism has never sat well with me. Which is interesting because in some ways, I lean towards it – or at least to the extent that when I decide to do something, I tend to jump right in the deep end and can become convinced that, at least for me, this is now the way to do things. But see, there’s the key to the difference – not the words in bold italics but the phrase just before them: at least for me. “At least” because if I think something is good for me, I’ll likely offer that it could be good for you too… but not that it must be, or that there is no other acceptable way. Back to Vedanta & paths up the mountain (which I went into in an earlier post): many ways to get there, and each is valid. “For me” because I don’t and won’t profess to know what works best for someone else, least of all what will get another closer to God. Now add to this the idea that not only is a fanatic telling others what they must do and believe, and that they’re wrong or will, you know, burn in Hell for all eternity… add to this that the person being told what to think and how to act is a young child.

Alright, you may argue that it is the duty of adults to teach their children how to behave, and I won’t disagree – I’m a parent (and have been an early childhood educator), and having had to deal with all stripes of other parents because of it, frankly I think there needs to be a good deal more of that; we call it parenting. However – and this is big – I believe that a parent has no business teaching a child to behave or insisting that a child does behave in such a manner that risks (let alone guarantees) that child’s death. Call me a rebel, but there it is. We are not owners of our children – we are their custodians and their shepherds, and with that comes the charge and the responsibility to protect them. From harm. Not put them in harm’s way.

Take the case of St. Sophia. Did you look her up? I won’t blame you if you decided not to – suffice to say, she got her three young daughters killed for (all of them) refusing to worship as another bade them – in this case the Emperor of Rome – and then got to join them… and was called, “courageous” for it. In my way of thinking, if she had been a good parent she would have taught or told her children that when the nice inquisitors tell you to deny that Jesus is Lord or pretend to worship their goddess, and you’ll live – you say the words they want to hear and offer flowers or whatever where they tell you to. Because (1) saying you deny your faith – repeating words that someone wants to hear in order to spare  your life – is not the same as denying that faith in your heart; and pretending to offer worship or act in a certain way under grave duress is not the same as turning your back on (or blaspheming against) Jesus or Buddha or Allah or Diana or any other way that you perceive All-of-What-Is. And (2) these are your children. Your first duty is to protect them. Making them say things that get them killed (and it was a horribly nasty death at that), is not protecting them. I don’t believe in a literal Hell… (especially since the original biblical word, Gehenna, is the name of an actual place on earth), but if I did, I’d have to think that handing your children over to certain death is one of the few things that could guarantee your spot there.

OK – I may have gone off on a tangent there. But even taking children out of the equation and assuming that the person being martyred is an aware and consenting adult (far be it from me to judge what other consenting adults want to do), there’s still the point – or at least my own belief – that that’s not how faith works. I can say I worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster (and some do) in order to appease a bully or someone who threatens to do me harm if I don’t… but it doesn’t mean I actually do. Saying is not doing; words are not deeds – hence the different word to describe them. So by all means, if you’d like the honor of dying for words that you hold dear, so be it… but leave your kids – and others – out of it.

But the whole martyrdom thing doesn’t stop there. People of faith (or without it) who subscribe to this notion assign spiritual, religious or metaphysical attributes to these martyrs and hold them as special or even sacred. They pretty much assign super-hero powers to mere mortals who preferred to die rather than speak a shallow untruth – and then worship (or at least revere) them. I’m not sure whether the term “idol worship” or “hero worship” is more appropriate, but I still don’t get it either way. Wanna hold someone as above-human in how they lived their life? Look to Gandhi, to Martin Luther King, Jr., to Mother Teresa, to Ramakrishna or any number of people who lived exemplary lives that we would all do well to emulate even in the smallest degree… but I don’t understand holding up the life of one of these martyrs as exemplary and saying, “yes – that’s the way to do it – sign me up”. I just… don’t get martyrs. Do you?

/6/1/15