Martyrdom is unfashionable in modern times. In the West we’re a generation or two removed from the thought of dying for an idea, and that makes martyrdom seem like a leftover scrap of preindustrial barbarism. We’re more familiar with the martyr complex – a state of self-pitying self-sacrifice that benefits no one.

The fostering of a martyr complex seems to be a recurrent theme in many of the deconversion and deconstruction stories I have read from my fellow millennials raised in Christian homeschooling households. They felt they were taught to prepare for martyrdom to an unhealthy extent, which often coupled with the idea that a truly holy life is one lived in detachment from the natural world. Extreme detachment from the natural world during, say, adolescence, when the basic goal of that development stage is to learn how to integrate with the natural world, is a setback, not an aid to growth. Many who are deconstructing feel more that they are trying to rebuild their lives in the midst of the frustration and grief of a long recovery.

These stories make it easy for critics of the Christian faith to paint it as a dour religion of death and self-abnegation. Who would pressure their children to view the world this way, unless they were people who needed a martyr complex in order to feel important?

But we do not serve a religion of death. We do not serve a religion of detachment from the created world. Martyrdom is only meaningful in the service of the highest truth; otherwise, it is as much an exercise in futility as the rest of the world thinks it is. We do not cave to death unless it means victory for the life of God that is within us. True martyrdom is a statement that we cannot have life without truth – that if deprived of truth, life is hollow and not worth keeping.

Martyrdom is the most noble act when performed rightly. And this is the very reason that more acute forms of self-righteousness and pride tend to grasp after it. Pride always seeks to turn the good, real, and true into objects for serving the self and the ego. Where there is anything good, pride will come and try to reign over it.

Pride and parenting is a radioactive combination. It can make what ought to be fertile spiritual ground a place too toxic to inhabit for years and years. But the ground may still be holy. Martyrdom is one example of such holy ground. It’s an old idea, wild and unsafe, but it was never meant to be anything other than an act of love – one that forsook pride instead of clinging to it. If in our martyr’s attitude we can see only ourselves and our sacrifice, then anything we hope to achieve by it dies with us.

_{Photo by Tanya Nevidoma on Unsplash}

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