Posted on 08/27/2014 11:27:18 AM PDT by marshmallow
From the moment news broke that U.S. journalist James Foley had been beheaded by Islamic State extremists in the Middle East, many Christians, especially Foley’s fellow Catholics, began calling him a martyr, with some even saying he should be considered a saint.
Yet that characterization has left others uneasy, and the discussion is raising larger questions about what constitutes martyrdom.
Foley’s parents seemed to validate the martyrdom label when his father, John, spoke at an emotional news conference outside the family’s New Hampshire home and said he and his wife “believe he was a martyr.” Foley’s mother, Diane, added that her son “reminds us of Jesus. Jesus was goodness, love — and Jim was becoming more and more that.”
In an interview two days later with Katie Couric, Foley’s younger brother, Michael, recounted how Pope Francis had called the family to console them and in their conversation “referred to Jim’s act as, really, martyrdom.”
Numerous commentators had already picked up on that idea, holding Foley up not only as a witness to the Christian faith but as a spur for believers in the West to take more seriously the plight of Christians in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East who are being persecuted to a degree that some say is comparable to genocide.
(Excerpt) Read more at religionnews.com ...
I like the way the rest of the world knows how to deal with barbarians like muslims.
That last Bible verse is interesting indeed. Were beheadings commonplace at the time of the early Church?
Christian tradition records (not the Bible) that the apostle Paul was beheaded instead of crucified or fed to wild beasts. Paul was a Roman citizen and beheading was the capital punishment for citizens of Rome.
I would focus on reason of the beheading rather than the execution technique.
I did not know you could ‘ignore’ users on FR. Is this a new function?
Ok, thanks.
No, there is no function. But I’m pretty good at mentally ignoring posters when I get to a certain point.
Good psychological operations there metmom:)
James Foley was baptized, received first communion, and was confirmed at our church. I knew the Foleys before Dr. John moved to Dover but I did not know Jim.
Those who grew up with him say he was devout. He was on video saying the Rosary during his earlier captivity in Libya.
I personally have no doubt that he did not renounce Christ (or we would know). I personally have no doubt that he was selected from among the other prisoners because he was a Christian.
Maybe according to your religion's tradition but not in God's Christianity...
Only born again Christians go to heaven whether a martyr or not...
James Foley Went Looking to Support Terrorists in Syria, Instead They Cut Off His Head
And now you want to make him a martyr? Why not a saint?
Martyr is a Greek word for Witness. According to your logic - as stated in your last post to me - you don’t believe someone who witnesses to Christ figures into “God’s Christianity”.
The idiocy expressed by anti-Catholics in their desperation to deny almost any truth expressed by almost any Catholic about doctrine is sometimes breathtaking.
Bible tells us that not all who witness to Christ are Christians...So again, I agree with God and not your tradition...
If one is a not a born again Christians and he witnesses to Christ a dozen times a day, he still won't make it to heaven...
How long does it take to become a saint? Does it cost anything?
He was an Islamist (dupe) and an anti-Semite. And he cheered the persecution of Christians in Syria.
If a person in the state of mortal sin is threatened with death unless he denies the Faith, and he refuses to do so, then he is no longer in the state of mortal sin.
I believe that God is mercifully generous with all those who die for belief in Him.
How was Gadaffi “martyred?” How do you define “martyred?”
If he was told he was going to be killed because he was a Christian, and he refused to renounce his Christian faith, then he was a martyr.
I was pointing out that he was not someone who should be lionized for his reporting.
Church teaching on this please?
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