Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)
A friend sent me some thoughts on St Stephen, the first martyr, celebrated the day after Christmas. Here is my reply:
“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” This
is an old, old proverb, and it shows us how close old Christianity was in some
ways to current (I erased “modern”) Islam. A “màrtys” in Greek is a witness: originally
in a secular sense, later someone who testified to a religious truth. And in
controversial situations, one who held nothing back, who was ready to affirm
his faith out loud even when facing the barrel of a gun or a team of torturers.
There have been martyrs, in this sense, in my lifetime: Dietrich Bonhoeffer for
instance, one of the leading lights of Nazi Germany’s “Confessing Church”, a
church that opted to speak out against the barbarity: a deeply civilised man
who wrote some lasting texts of faith and was hanged with piano wire. And, of
course, anyone willing to die for his faith tends mightily to impress
bystanders.
On the other hand, said Oscar Wilde, “an idea is not
necessarily true because a man dies for it.” This statement, true in itself, is
also deliberately provocative and thus a lie on another level. But in today’s
Western world, the idea of the martyr is seriously uncomfortable. It smacks of
hysteria, of over-dramatization, of Cecil B. DeMille, or alternatively of
bearded Muslim fanatics with explosive vests.
So what do we do with Stephen? He was not subtle. He was all
of a piece, a good speaker, and spoke out when it was a damn fool thing to do.
And he was stoned to death for it, which is not a pretty way to go. (Google it
and see some horrid things.) I can’t really write about this, as I have not
(and I thank God for it) have been in such a situation, and know not what I
should do if I got there. I have dire suspicions about myself. So in one sense, obviously, I admire the ones
who find themselves in the situation and
have the courage.
But if life has denied us Stephen’s fate (at least so far),
what conclusions can a meditation on martyrdom lead to? One: it is a healthy church
consensus that it must never be sought.
If it happens, if the person facing the situation has the courage to persevere
and die for the cause, well and good; but my own feeling is that while it can be
an inspiration if it happens, it should not in itself and for itself be
glorified.
Secondly, the Church has another interpretation, beyond the
simple story. For the Church, the Feast of Stephen, coming directly after the
Nativity, is a bridge upon which to look forward already to Easter. A reminder
that birth leads to death, but that death leads to resurrection. For what we
have not mentioned, so far, is what Stephen spoke out about, what he witnessed to.
And that, of course, is the Risen Christ.
So the Feast of Stephen is a celebration of witnessing, of
carrying the story of the Resurrection out into an unbelieving world. In 1615,
in 1715, in 1815, this would have chiefly meant taking ship for unknown parts
and preaching to “natives”; for the world at home was one in which every
village had a church (sometimes two) and every church had a priest or minister.
Now, however, the unbelieving world is all around us. It may not stone us if we
talk about the Risen Christ, but it is quite likely to turn away in vague
irritation and wonder if we have gone a little soft in the head.
Moreover, this same unbelieving world is periodically
assailed by strident “witnesses” who purport to proclaim the Risen Christ but
do so in loud, tactless and simplistic ways. They make a number of converts, but for every convert they make they alienate one or two other listeners, some
definitively. Perhaps a modern Stephen in the Western world is well advised to
learn what the Church calls “discernment”: the application of (prayerful)
intelligence and tact to faith and its situations.
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