The Suffering Church
Mere Christianity Is Fundamentally Cruciform
One of the prayers of the First Hour of the Orthodox Daily Office begins: “The universe offers you the God-bearing martyrs as the first fruits of creation, O Lord and Creator.” Tertullian’s oft-quoted line comes to mind, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” In both it is suggested that the martyr is the one closest to the essence of what it means to be a follower of Christ. Christian martyrs are likened to seed or first fruits—both the beginning and the end of the life in Christ. They are the fertile signs of the coming kingdom of God.
A Christian writer and journalist recently asked me what I thought was necessary for the renewal of Christianity in the West. I answered, a return to a cruciform faith, by which I meant an embrace of the martyrs not only of our Christian past but also of our present age.
Martyrdom for Christ is a charism of the Holy Spirit, not an act of the human will. The martyr is promised that, when brought to trial, he need not prepare beforehand what to say, but that what to say “will be given you by the Spirit.” Those who are persecuted for Jesus’ name’s sake know not only the “fellowship of his sufferings” but also what it is to walk “in his steps,” to be imitators of him. In this, they are exemplars of Christian discipleship, as well as witnesses against the soul-destroying materialism of an affluent culture.
Remember the Martyrs
Terrorist suicide bombers are not martyrs. Christian martyrs seek neither the death of anyone nor the furtherance of any social or political cause. They seek only to be united with their Lord and Savior, both in his death and in his resurrection. The martyr has let go of this world and embraced the new world that has been opened to him by the Lord, which is his final and eternal destiny.
All Christians are to “die with Christ,” but the martyr is given the grace to participate in this in a unique and spiritually powerful way. He has resisted sin by the shedding of his blood and has passed from death to life.
This seems a far cry from the preoccupations of many Western Christians in the last several decades. How often is martyrdom preached about from the pulpit? How many martyrs can we name? Do we know their stories? Thousands upon thousands of Christians were killed for their faith in the twentieth century—within the memory of some who are still alive—and many today are suffering persecution and death for their faith. This is where Christ is most clearly seen.
Knowledge of the suffering members of the church should not be an elective course for Christians, but part of our core curriculum. Since early in the history of Touchstone, we have endeavored to keep readers informed about our persecuted brethren, and we intend to continue doing so.
Unity Comes Through Suffering for Christ
There is no mere Christianity without martyrdom—indeed, it may be the key to Christian unity. As C. S. Lewis once wrote to Don Giovanni Calabria (now a Roman Catholic saint):
Common perils, common burdens, an almost universal hatred and contempt for the Flock of Christ can, by God’s Grace, contribute much to the healing of our divisions. For those who suffer the same things from the same people for the same Person can scarcely not love each other.
Mere Christianity is a Christianity of the Cross; when we stand together at Golgotha, beholding the Lord of Glory, with our mouths filled with praise, our hearts with love, and our minds with wonder at his love for us and for all men, we are united in him. The martyrs have grasped this and embraced the glory of the Cross.
But those who attempt to nuance, downplay, hide, or even deny the Cross repeat, in a sense, the error of the disciple Peter, to whom the Lord said, “Get behind me, Satan.”
With the mature Apostle Peter, we must ask, “Quo vadis, Domine?” We dare not tell Jesus where to go or what to do for us or how to bless us. We must follow him, “always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body” (2 Cor. 4:10). If we bear the dying and the life of Jesus in our bodies, then we shall indeed be “God-bearing martyrs.”
—James M. Kushiner
James M. Kushiner is the Director of Publications for The Fellowship of St. James and the former Executive Editor of Touchstone.
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more on ecumenism from the online archives
31.4—July/August 2018
Labels & the Ecumenism of Discipleship by James M. Kushiner
more from the online archives
31.1—January/February 2018
on Taking the Measure of the Deserving & the Undeserving Poor by Martin Bordelon
33.2—March/April 2020
Encounters with Faith & Forgiveness in Communities of Faith by Nicole M. King
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