This past Sunday was the
International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, an occasion that
reminds Christians that many of their brethren are killed for their
faith every year.
But how many?
On Tuesday the BBC published an article exploring the controversy
over the dramatically large numbers of Christian martyrs published by
the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell
Theological Seminary.
According to the center, more than 100,000
Christians are martyred every year.
I worked in the State Department’s Office of International Religious
Freedom for several years, and I have always found this figure puzzling.
My colleagues and I produced an annual report on persecution worldwide
that contained accounts of dozens, sometimes hundreds, of martyrs. Some
Christian human rights organizations place the number as high as 1,000.
Why is there such discrepancy?
It all depends on how one defines “martyrdom.”
The center, home to the world’s leading scholars of Christian
demographics, defines Christian martyrs as “believers in Christ who have
lost their lives prematurely, in situations of witness, as a result of
human hostility.”
The definition seems straightforward enough, but the annual number of
Christian martyrs will vary from hundreds to hundreds of thousands
depending on how we interpret “situations of witness.” The center is
clear about its use of “a broad definition.”
This definition goes far beyond deaths in the context of public
proclamation of belief in Jesus. It is interested in the “entire
lifestyle” of the murdered believer. Even if a killer is not targeting
Christians on account of their faith, Christians are “counted as martyrs
to the extent that their actions in such situations are a testimony to
their faith.”
This understanding leads the center to ascribe the term “martyr” to
millions of Christians who have died in civil conflicts in places like
Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
(As an aside, we should
be shocked and compelled to action by any mass killings, Christian or
otherwise.)
The center’s broad definition and large numbers force us to
reconsider our standard definitions of martyrdom. A martyr is not just a
solitary saint mauled by lions in a coliseum or a reformer burned at
the stake. “Situations of witness” vary widely and may seem quite
mundane.
Many martyrs are ordinary folks with extraordinary courage and
commitment.
The center is highly regarded for producing top-notch products that
often challenge prevailing perceptions of contemporary world
Christianity.
I was delighted to host the center’s director, Todd
Johnson, for a lecture at the State Department’s Forum on Religion &
Global Affairs in 2011.
Like its other work, the center’s reporting on martyrdom is rigorous
and interesting — and if nothing else, it shows that lots of Christians
die in terrible circumstances.
But I fear that its expansive definition
works better in theory than in practice. It doesn’t ring true to the
religious freedom activists who carefully monitor persecution and
martyrdom year after year.
More importantly, an overly broad definition
of martyrdom risks cheapening the term and diminishing the very real
sacrifice of those who are killed for following Jesus.
Calling millions of Christian victims of bloody civil wars “martyrs”
is a bit like calling all the victims of 9/11 “heroes.” To be sure, many
exhibited remarkable heroism.
But most 9/11 victims were in the wrong
place at the wrong time.
The same goes for most Christians who lose their lives prematurely as
a result of human hostility. They are often caught up in conflicts
sparked by a complex web of ethnic, economic, political, ideological and
other factors. Singling out the religious factor — let alone
identifying religious martyrs — is incredibly complicated.
That’s not to say religion isn’t a major motivating and mobilizing
factor in many conflicts.
Nor is a narrower definition of martyrdom
problem-free. No definition is perfect. Any attempt to define and
quantify martyrs will invariably oversimplify a convoluted human
tragedy.
I would argue for an understanding of martyrdom that is honest and
modest. Honest about the messy complexity of human violence and modest
about the ability to quantify with any precision the number of people
violently killed for their faith. The number of clear-cut martyrdoms
each year is actually quite low, and they often make international news.
It may sound counterintuitive, but it’s better to err on the side of
undercounting martyrs than to risk overcounting them. What’s at stake is
credible religious freedom advocacy.
Abusive regimes fear public
scrutiny and look for any opportunity to undermine an advocate’s
credibility.
Conservative estimates of the severity of persecution allow us to say
to the world: We know this much abuse happened, and the reality may be
worse. We can’t afford to give persecutors any grounds to claim the
reality is actually much better.
However many Christian (or other) martyrs there may be each year is
too many.
In the battle against global religious persecution, careful,
realistic reporting is an essential weapon.