Nonviolence as Criterion of Martyrdom?
In view of the possibility of violence en route to Christian martyrdom, this chapter explores the pacifist tradition of Christian ethics and its claim that true martyrdom demands nonviolence, as that is the intended shape of the Christian life. After presenting the biblical case for nonviolence and charting the historical development of Christian pacifism, the chapter focuses on historic Anabaptism’s link between martyrdom and nonviolent defenselessness as the distinctive texture of discipleship, especially as reflected in the martyrologies in Thieleman van Braght’s Martyrs’ Mirror (1660). The chapter concludes with an analysis of the role of the imitatio Christi ethic in the peace church traditions and the insights that this tradition offers to the question of the criteria or markers of true Christian martyrdom.