Back when I was in catechism class – on Saturday morning when all the Protestant kids were watching TV – the nuns would often tell us: “If you are taken over by tyrants who tell you to renounce your faith on pain of torture and death, resist like the martyrs of old. For this you will be rewarded in heaven!” I don’t think any of us showed anything on our faces, but later, we would all agree that, heck, we’d say “sure, we renounce God,” and then go on our merry way. God would know, wouldn’t he?
For my wife, who was Bible Belt Protestant and went to Sunday school while the grown-ups went to church (way better), the teachers were much more explicit. “If the communists take over, they will burn the Bible. Never forget your Bible (were they not to become martyrs? That I don’t know), for that is the word of God.” They then had every kid memorize a portion of the Bible, so that, if that awful day came, they could meet secretly and piece the whole of it together. Of course, many would likely become martyrs as the cells were broken up. I’m sure the kids thought the same – renounce the Word to their faces, but still keep it in your heart. God would know.
I am reading the End Times series on and off, which is mostly action and pulp writing (guilty pleasure) but also sprinkled with sermons and Bible phrases, mostly from the Book of Revelations about the end of the old world and the second coming of Christ. Here, we have a world like our own in our own time, except that the prophesies of doom – oceans turning to blood, deadly horsemen and so on – are actually showing up. In one of the latter books, people are forced to take the Mark of the Beast – of Satan – or be killed, sometimes gruesomely. But if they do take the Mark, they are forever forsaken in Hell. No easy outs this, and it brought me to think – yeah, if I saw the oceans turn to blood and supernatural creatures killing people, and one guy taking over the world, sure, I would probably go the martyr route. The reason is obvious, because what would be happening would be obvious – the end of the world was coming, and it was real just like the Bible said, and what the hey, I’ll be dead soon anyway, so heaven, here I come.
Yet, what if it happened more like what we were told as kids? What if it was Russia or China that took us over, and demanded our renunciation of faith? As an adult, would I put myself up for torture, and maybe my entire family as well (as they do in North Korea), to prove my faith? Now I understand what we were being told as kids – for the deeply religious (of most faiths), the world is a temporary thing, and if anything, a mere trial of deeds and thoughts. Surely if I truly believed, wouldn’t I put up with a trifling few days or months or even years of torture (and family too) for eternal paradise? One would have to say yes. Me, I’m not so sure.
And worse: if I really believed in Christianity as a whole, wouldn’t I wish to convert all those I cared for to the faith? For without Jesus – or at least, without a deep and true faith – there would be hell awaiting them, or at least (again of other faiths) eternal rebirths into hardships and misery or something like it. Wouldn’t I, then, try to save those around me?
But I won’t. As an American, I feel that each has his own path which is his own responsibility. Just as important, I don’t want to be a pain in the ass, a wet blanket on every social affair, as the proselytizers often are. I would lose friends, be shunned. I would be mocked and laughed at – just as the Bible says will happen to those of true belief. This is a martyrdom of a lesser kind, but not a hypothetical. Just as a child, I prefer to have my own thoughts and talk about football (or – shudder – politics) or some such of much less importance. No martyrdom for me.
Doesn’t this point out my lack of faith, and even cowardice? Probably, but I am not alone, and the question is appropriate to all, not only to believers of a religion. Would you, for instance, really die for your country? Or how about your family? Many would say yes, at least to the latter, but do you plan on, or have you, contributed all you can or could to your dying parents? Did you put in all the time you could to your children? Did you, or do you, even make an effort to make life good, beyond normal convenience, for your spouse? Never mind death.
Hoo boy, I know, guilt city - but that is not the point. Rather, it is to underscore the depth of, or lack of, our belief in anything beyond our own comfort and survival. Put in a more universal way, do you value – truly value, more than yourself and survival – anything? Are we not usually just human animals, run by the same primitive impulses, no higher, no greater?
This is why we love the story of heroes, of people who go beyond these instincts. This is why we attach ourselves to such heroes, but by how much? We live as idealists, thinking ourselves greater than just our impulsive selves, but are we, really? Thus the tests of faith, thus the suffering, thus all those things that must be in place to make the hero in this world. It seems that in this, religion has it right, and it is not just a cliché: to become heroes, to become more than our animal selves, we need testing, sometimes to the extreme. As with any tales of the heroic, suffering might really be necessary; it might really be essential to make of us more than what we normally are, whether for eternal salvation, or just to prove to ourselves that we are truly more, that we are truly human. FK
For my wife, who was Bible Belt Protestant and went to Sunday school while the grown-ups went to church (way better), the teachers were much more explicit. “If the communists take over, they will burn the Bible. Never forget your Bible (were they not to become martyrs? That I don’t know), for that is the word of God.” They then had every kid memorize a portion of the Bible, so that, if that awful day came, they could meet secretly and piece the whole of it together. Of course, many would likely become martyrs as the cells were broken up. I’m sure the kids thought the same – renounce the Word to their faces, but still keep it in your heart. God would know.
I am reading the End Times series on and off, which is mostly action and pulp writing (guilty pleasure) but also sprinkled with sermons and Bible phrases, mostly from the Book of Revelations about the end of the old world and the second coming of Christ. Here, we have a world like our own in our own time, except that the prophesies of doom – oceans turning to blood, deadly horsemen and so on – are actually showing up. In one of the latter books, people are forced to take the Mark of the Beast – of Satan – or be killed, sometimes gruesomely. But if they do take the Mark, they are forever forsaken in Hell. No easy outs this, and it brought me to think – yeah, if I saw the oceans turn to blood and supernatural creatures killing people, and one guy taking over the world, sure, I would probably go the martyr route. The reason is obvious, because what would be happening would be obvious – the end of the world was coming, and it was real just like the Bible said, and what the hey, I’ll be dead soon anyway, so heaven, here I come.
Yet, what if it happened more like what we were told as kids? What if it was Russia or China that took us over, and demanded our renunciation of faith? As an adult, would I put myself up for torture, and maybe my entire family as well (as they do in North Korea), to prove my faith? Now I understand what we were being told as kids – for the deeply religious (of most faiths), the world is a temporary thing, and if anything, a mere trial of deeds and thoughts. Surely if I truly believed, wouldn’t I put up with a trifling few days or months or even years of torture (and family too) for eternal paradise? One would have to say yes. Me, I’m not so sure.
And worse: if I really believed in Christianity as a whole, wouldn’t I wish to convert all those I cared for to the faith? For without Jesus – or at least, without a deep and true faith – there would be hell awaiting them, or at least (again of other faiths) eternal rebirths into hardships and misery or something like it. Wouldn’t I, then, try to save those around me?
But I won’t. As an American, I feel that each has his own path which is his own responsibility. Just as important, I don’t want to be a pain in the ass, a wet blanket on every social affair, as the proselytizers often are. I would lose friends, be shunned. I would be mocked and laughed at – just as the Bible says will happen to those of true belief. This is a martyrdom of a lesser kind, but not a hypothetical. Just as a child, I prefer to have my own thoughts and talk about football (or – shudder – politics) or some such of much less importance. No martyrdom for me.
Doesn’t this point out my lack of faith, and even cowardice? Probably, but I am not alone, and the question is appropriate to all, not only to believers of a religion. Would you, for instance, really die for your country? Or how about your family? Many would say yes, at least to the latter, but do you plan on, or have you, contributed all you can or could to your dying parents? Did you put in all the time you could to your children? Did you, or do you, even make an effort to make life good, beyond normal convenience, for your spouse? Never mind death.
Hoo boy, I know, guilt city - but that is not the point. Rather, it is to underscore the depth of, or lack of, our belief in anything beyond our own comfort and survival. Put in a more universal way, do you value – truly value, more than yourself and survival – anything? Are we not usually just human animals, run by the same primitive impulses, no higher, no greater?
This is why we love the story of heroes, of people who go beyond these instincts. This is why we attach ourselves to such heroes, but by how much? We live as idealists, thinking ourselves greater than just our impulsive selves, but are we, really? Thus the tests of faith, thus the suffering, thus all those things that must be in place to make the hero in this world. It seems that in this, religion has it right, and it is not just a cliché: to become heroes, to become more than our animal selves, we need testing, sometimes to the extreme. As with any tales of the heroic, suffering might really be necessary; it might really be essential to make of us more than what we normally are, whether for eternal salvation, or just to prove to ourselves that we are truly more, that we are truly human. FK
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