Saved by a Martyr: Evangelical Mediation, Sanctification, and the “Persecuted Church”
This article examines the significance of mediation in the public programming and activism of The Voice of the Martyrs (VOM), an organization that offers international aid and advocacy to Christians identified as victims of persecution. Focusing on VOM's efforts to rally Westerners, especially...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
[2016]
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| In: |
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Year: 2016, Volume: 84, Issue: 4, Pages: 1056-1080 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
The Voice of the Martyrs
/ Christian persecution
/ Evangelical movement
/ Crime victim
/ Sacralization
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| RelBib Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy AX Inter-religious relations CC Christianity and Non-Christian religion; Inter-religious relations CG Christianity and Politics ZC Politics in general |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | This article examines the significance of mediation in the public programming and activism of The Voice of the Martyrs (VOM), an organization that offers international aid and advocacy to Christians identified as victims of persecution. Focusing on VOM's efforts to rally Westerners, especially evangelical Protestants, I argue that the antipersecution movement urges supporters to share the mantle of martyrdom by engaging in purposeful acts of religious mediation, including the consumption and circulation of martyrological media. I explore a related tendency among evangelicals to valorize non-Western Christians in precarious circumstances as exemplars of self-sacrificing piety, whose suffering represents and inspires conditions of sanctification. Drawing on media analysis and fieldwork, I explore how practices of mediation, as forms of “witness,” invite evangelicals to embody otherwise elusive virtues and modes of agency associated with Christian martyrs, while reflecting ambiguous modern conceptions of the nature of embodied suffering and the relationship between vulnerability and power. |
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| ISSN: | 1477-4585 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: American Academy of Religion, Journal of the American Academy of Religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/lfw016 |