An End to Martyrdom?

Earlier this week I heard two stories recounted by Andrew White, the ‘Vicar of Baghdad’. To his credit, he told them without commentary or elaboration, simply offering them to his audience as examples of life in Iraq.

They both concerned fathers named Josef, both of whom had phoned him in great distress. The first father was distressed because members of the Islamic State had burst into his home, demanding that he recant his belief in Christianity and declare belief in Islam. If they did not, his children would be shot. He recanted, his family was spared and he was filled with guilt at ‘denying’ Jesus. He wanted to know if he could be forgiven; Andrew assured him that he was.

The second father phoned Andrew a week later, sobbing on the phone as he talked. The Islamic State had entered his home in a similar fashion and demanded that all family members recant their Christian faith. His children held hands, refused to do so as they declared very personal faith in Jesus and they were shot one by one. The father was left alive to suffer his loss. Andrew comforted him as best he could.

The barbarity of the Islamic State, the distress of both men and the courage of the children are all beyond doubt, but these stories raise troubling questions not only for Christians but for any followers of a belief system, from Buddhism to Communism.

If, as is surely right, the first Josef was not culpable for pretending to convert in order to save his family, was the sacrifice of the second Josef’s family unnecessary or even misguided? At the very least, is this sacrifice in some way not devalued if a public denial (albeit a false one) of faith can be dismissed because it was effected under duress.

Equally pertinently, is it right even to suggest that God (if we allow for the moment that God exists) connives in human evil by expecting children to confess faith in the face of threatened execution? What sort of God would that be? If, however, God does not collude in such appalling human ‘tests’, does that diminish the sacrifice of courageous martyrs down through the centuries?  Again, similar questions can be asked of secular causes.

I feel that I need to state again that I am not devaluing the distress of the victims involved, the courage of the children who were killed or the barbarity of the Islamic State, but I can’t help but wonder….