Relevance
Being persecuted for one's faith and the veneration of martyrs have been important components of the Christian faith for centuries.
"Martyrdom for the faith ...became a central feature in the Christian experience."
“Notions of persecution by the "world," ...run deep in the Christian tradition. For evangelicals who read the New Testament as an inerrant history of the primitive church, the understanding that to be a Christian is to be persecuted is obvious, if not inescapable”
The "eschatological ideology" of martyrdom was based on an irony found in the Pauline epistles: "to live outside of Christ is to die, and to die in Christ is to live."
Read more about this topic: Christian Martyrs
Famous quotes containing the word relevance:
“... whatever men do or know or experience can make sense only to the extent that it can be spoken about. There may be truths beyond speech, and they may be of great relevance to man in the singular, that is, to man in so far as he is not a political being, whatever else he may be. Men in the plural, that is, men in so far as they live and move and act in this world, can experience meaningfulness only because they can talk with and make sense to each other and to themselves.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“The most striking fault in work by young or beginning novelists, submitted for criticism, is irrelevance—due either to infatuation or indecision. To direct such an author’s attention to the imperative of relevance is certainly the most useful—and possibly the only—help that can be given.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)
“Wherever the relevance of speech is at stake, matters become political by definition, for speech is what makes man a political being.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)