Christian martyrdom and Christian violence : on suffering and wielding the sword /
"What is the place-if any-for violence in the Christian life? This book explores this question by analyzing a paradox of mainstream Christian history, theology, and ethics: At the heart of the Christian story, the suffering of violence stands as the price of faithfulness. From Jesus himself to...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York, NY, United States of America :
Oxford University Press,
[2021]
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | "What is the place-if any-for violence in the Christian life? This book explores this question by analyzing a paradox of mainstream Christian history, theology, and ethics: At the heart of the Christian story, the suffering of violence stands as the price of faithfulness. From Jesus himself to martyrs who have died while following him, at the core of Christian faith is an experience of being victimized by the world's violence. At the same time, the majority opinion for most of Christian history has held that there are situations when the follower of Jesus may be justified in inflicting violence on others, especially in the context of war. Do these two facets of Christian ethics and experience-martyrdom and the just war-represent a contradiction, the self-defeating irony of those who follow a Lord who refused to defend himself taking up deadly weapons? In arguing that they do not, the book contends that any meaningful coherence between a theology of martyrdom and commitment to a just war ethic requires shifts away from a common heroic conception of Christian martyrdom and a common secularized Realpolitik conception of necessary violence. Instead, it requires a view of martyrdom that acknowledges even the martyrs as subject to the ambiguities of the human condition, even as they present a compelling witness to Jesus and the way of the cross. And it requires an approach to justified violence that reflects the self-sacrificial ethos of Jesus displayed in the lives of true Christian martyrs"-- |
|---|---|
| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xii, 281 pages). |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780197566619 0197566618 9780197566626 0197566626 9780197566602 019756660X |