Religious terrorism is founded on the longstanding religious imagination of existing cosmic wars amongst different believers. According to Juergensmeyer (2003, p. 15), religious terrorism has been developing with time, based on the perceptions of the followers of a specific religion, interpretations of existing external attacks, and the quest to protect deities from abuse, attack, and exploitation. One of the common religious terror activities has been on martyrdom, the practice of causing death to oneself on the basis of being a witness to ideological and theological perspectives and beliefs. It’s a voluntary process that has been taking place for many years past, and its main influence has been on attacks on personal beliefs and the notion that voluntary death will have a significant effect on the perceptions of the religious movement. By definition, martyrs are witnesses, who chose to die than revoke their belief and dedication to a specific religious movement (Cicek, 2006, p. 96). The Christian religion has had some of the biggest martyrs, especially when struggling to establish universal ground as the right and correct religion.
One of the most popular martyrs, and who was subsequently featured in the religious scripts, the Bible, was Stephen. Stephen was one of the first Christian believers after the ascension of Jesus Christ. According to the religious scriptures, Stephen was condemned to die by stoning, after failing to denounce his faith in Jesus Christ, who was considered as a misplaced reformist by the Romans and other nonbelievers. According to the argument presented by Juergensmeyer, religious-based terrors are mostly perpetrated by men, and on rare occasions, women (Juergensmyer 2003, p. 20). Stephen chose to die rather than be coerced to proclaim another different belief and religion. Based on the decision taken by Stephen, dying while proclaiming a specific faith, in this case, Christianity was enough to convince the non-believers that the doctrine was the right one and that everyone else should follow suit.
Martyrdom demonstrates a terrifying response to theological opposition and attacks (Freamon 2003, p. 11). Since Juergensmeyer claims that terror in religious circles is based on cosmic wars, martyrs expect change to occur once they volunteer to die as witnesses to their beliefs. In Stephen’s case, the attack on Christian believers posed a threat to the expansion of the religion. In addition, there was a possibility of discouraging the Christians at the time through intimidation and threats. Martyrdom was therefore one of the possible retractions to the cosmic attacks on his faith and as such, a terrifying counteraction was inevitable. Terror in religious movements aims at protecting the ideologies being attacked by opposing groups and martyrdom being an irreversible counter action targets the perpetrators of the attack and aims at establishing a positive attribute based on the beliefs. Stephen died having forgiven the people stoning him to death.
Stephen’s martyrdom, therefore, portrays the longstanding practice among other martyrs, of protecting and forgiving attackers of the believer’s religious beliefs. In Stephen’s case, he had to endure the pain to revolutionize the perception on Christianity. People had to understand the extent to which believers can go to protect and proclaim their religious beliefs (Cicek, 2006, p. 99). In Stephen’s case, he demonstrated that Christianity was at war with some opposing forces and unless he sacrificed his life, people would not get the ideal situation of the conflict. Martyrdom aims at establishing a permanent response to cosmic attacks and defines the staunch and firm beliefs of the volunteer.
References
Cicek, H 2006, ‘Martyrdom In Judaism, Christianity And Islam: Analogies and Differences’, The Way, vol. 48, no. 4, pp. 95-106.
Freamon, BK 2003, ‘Martyrdom, Suicide, and the Islamic Law of War: A Short Legal History’, Fordham International Law Journal, vol. 27, no. 1, pp 11.
Juergensmyer, M 2003, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. Comparative Studies in Religion and Society, University of California Press, Berkley, LA.