Martyrs: Contemporary Writers on Modern Lives of Faith - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060611200 ISBN 13: 9780060611200

Publisher: Harper San Francisco, 1996

Synopsis

Twenty acclaimed writers, including Julia Alvarez, Ron Hansen, and Kathleen Norris, offer a thoughful meditation of what it means to live and die in the name of faith, profiling such modern martyrs as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Archbishop Oscar Romero, and Steven Biko. 12,500 first printing.

About this title

From the Publisher

Twenty original essays by distinguished contemporary writers trace an indelible portrait of the martyrs of our century, documenting a struggle that has played out across the boundaries of nations and between the realm of culture and the province of the sacred. The stories of these remarkable individuals who chose faith at the cost of life demonstrate that what remains, after the drama of their agonizing deaths, is a legacy of inspiring faith.

"Now in this century, which has produced more martyrs than all other centuries combined, the time has come to honor the newly fallen. I find the lineup in this book, both of subjects and authors, simply stunning." --Philip Yancey, author of The Jesus I Never Knew

"Unsentimental, critical, and penetrating, this book most directly confronts me with the question: 'Who are you willing to die for?' With its gripping stories about contemporary martyrs it exposes the immense challenge of a committed life."
--Henri Nouwen

"This book offers both fact and insight concerning one of the deepest mysteries in human experience: Why would a person willingly give up his or her own life for reasons of faith or for social justice?...What seems to emerge in these accounts is the truth that love, the greatest commandment, sometimes requires of God's faithful the ultimate sacrifice, one that love enables them willingly to make." --Alfred Corn, editor of Incarnation: Contemporary Writers on the New Testament

"This book belongs in every Christian's arsenal." --David Neff, executive editor, Christianity Today

"The stories...are the pounding heart of this luminous book." --Mark A. Noll, professor of history, Wheaton College

Susan Bergman is an award-winning essayist and poet. She is the author of a memoir, Anonymity, which was published in 1994 to wide critical acclaim, and a novel, The Buried Life, forthcoming in 1997.

The impressive list of contributors include:

• Susan Bergman on modern martyrdom
• Larry Woiwode on Aleksandr Men
• Ron Hansen on the Jesuits of El Salvador
• Carolyn Forch on Oscar Romero
• Nancy Mairs on Janani Luwum
• Paul Elie on Steven Biko
• Gerald Early on Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Julia Alvarez on the Mirabals
• Steve Saint on Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully and Peter Fleming
• Marilynne Robinson on Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• Calvin Bedient on Etty Hillesum
• Anthony Walton on Simone Weil
• Patricia Hampl on Edith Stein
• Paul Mariani on Maximilian Kolbe
• Mark Rudman on Osip Mandelstam
• Peggy O'Brien on Patrick Pearse
• Robert Ellsberg on Charles de Foucauld
• Kathleen Norris on Maria Goretti
• Barbara Lazear Ascher on the Boxer Rebellion
• Dana Gioia, Afterword

From Kirkus Reviews

A moving anthology that proves Tertullian's age-old axiom that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Bergman (Anonymity, 1994) has culled an impressive collection of essays on 20th-century Christian martyrs. The writings are arranged in reverse chronological order, beginning with the 1993 martyrdom of Russian pastor Aleksander Men and closing with the slayings of missionaries during China's 1900 Boxer Rebellion. Along the way, we encounter familiar exemplars, such as Oscar Romero (in a brilliant essay by Carolyn Forch‚) and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as well as unexpected ones, such as Simone Weil. (Simone Weil a Christian martyr? Anthony Walton makes a strong case for it, though Weil's death from a heart attack hardly compares to the more gruesome ends of the other heroes described here.) Throughout many of the essays, writers mingle themes of social justice and political maneuvering with Christian theology, painting complex portraits of the individuals involved. In one essay, such complexity verges on skepticism. Gerald Early's portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr. explicitly compares the famous leader to Uncle Tom, claiming that King ``artfully and brilliantly exploited the Uncle Tom archetype to legitimate his own leadership in the eyes of both black and white America.'' Early's essay also contains no mention whatsoever of King's martyr-death, the focal point on which the other chapters converge. Still, it is a thoughtful piece that forces readers to examine King in a fresh way. Bergman's anthology is not a simplistic glorification of heroic death ... la John Foxe's Book of the Martyrs. This is grittier. It is an appropriate response to a century in which cataclysmic violence has reached unprecedented proportions. These essays stand as a bold witness to the courage of a few who have sought God in the midst of systematic destruction. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper San Francisco
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0060611200
• ISBN 13: 9780060611200
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352
• Editor: Bergman Susan