Word: martyrdom
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Looking for Martyrdom...
...Your Essay on "Styles in Martyrdom" [Oct. 11] was timely and interesting. One point about martyrs seems to be ignored these days: the true martyr does not go around looking for martyrdom. Neither, as a rule, does he make dramatic, newsworthy gestures for their own sake...
...none of these events occurred, and the result may have been unsought and undeserved martyrdom for a shoe-worker and a fish-peddler who happened to be Italian immigrants with radical sympathies. The trial of Sacco and Vanzetti was undoubtedly the most significant of this century. Its world-wide repercussions rivaled those of the Dreyfus case in France. for the larger part of a decade it commanded the interest and emotion of millions of people both here in America and throughout Europe...
...given or at least risked his life in order to testify to the truth or relevance of the Christian faith. In the early church, the term was applied to anyone who preached the good news of Christ despite obstacles or threats of persecution; only in the second century did martyrdom take on the connotation of dying for the faith. Somewhat later, the church came to accept a "white" martyrdom as well as the "red" martyrdom of death -meaning the surrender of something personally cherished for the love...
...cooler eye, sees him as something else: a special kind of social deviant. As Sociologist Robert K. Merton points out, the "historically significant nonconformist," his own definition of martyr, often risks his life for a variety of motives, some noble, some not. There are cases, he notes, in which martyrdom may be little else than "an expression of primary narcissism" or "a need for punishment." Like Camus's Rebel, or Peter Viereck's "unadjusted man," the martyr is one who ultimately refuses to act according to the accepted norms of his society. He is psychological kin, in short...