Christian Calling and the Ideal of Martyrdom in the Real World

Abstract

Setting just war reasoning into its broader context, this chapter begins by examining the logic, weight, and dangers of the “realist” traditions of Christian ethics, especially Augustine, Niebuhr, and Bonhoeffer (one often acclaimed as martyr though implicated in violent resistance). It shows how Protestant theologies of “vocation” typically sanction the sword-bearing occupations of magistrate, soldier, and law enforcement official as potentially consistent with Christian discipleship and holiness. Recent discussions of “moral injury” in soldiers are considered in relation to this “calling” of sword-bearing for the common good. In dialogue with Roman Catholicism, the chapter elaborates a Protestant conception of sainthood that acknowledges the ambiguity of the world, a conception that occasions a return to the criteria identifying Christian martyrdom.