< On the other hand, if every early Christian who's life was in danger for their beliefs (which was all until the roman empire accepted Christianity) had gone to their deaths instead of staying hidden, praying in private, not outwardly expressing their belief etc - we wouldn't be here today praising Jesus. >
Yeah. Thanks for reminding me of that. Some people's thinking on this thread would send all those guys drawing fish in the sand straight to hell.
I thought about this a lot this morning at church. Oddly enough, the reading today was about the Jews having to choose between the gods of the Ammorites and the True God.
I would doubt, first of all, that either of the two journalists was a practicing Christian (most journalists aren't, regardless of who they work for) so in a sense, they weren't rejecting their Christian faith, specifically.
But in the eyes of the Muslims, they were doing just that, because the Muslims regard the West as synonymous with Judaism/Christianity, so the Muzzies got the propaganda value they wanted out of it, and the ME has just become much more dangerous for all. This won't be the last of these kidnappings for forced conversion (propaganda) purposes.
In terms of the early Christian martyrs, there was serious debate in the early Church over whether Christians who had apostasized could be forgiven and welcomed back. It was decided that they could be, although of course they had to do penance.
Fortunately, most martyrs realized the importance of what they were saying and doing and did not apostasize, or, as you say, there would have been no Christianity. Words and gestures are our way of communicating our interior disposition to the world; interestingly, what the reporters said was not considered binding by them, but obviously was considered so by their captors.
Uh, actually, MANY early Christians DID go to their deaths for their beliefs rather than hide. Likely if they hadn't done THAT, the beliefs wouldn't have survived, as their martyrdom left quite an impression on others.
In fact, many early Christians TRIED to get themselves killed, to be with their Lord rather than jealously cling to this world. It's my understanding that to this day, you can see the carvings where early Christians jumped from cliffs.
(Of course, after several centuries of this original state of affairs, it WAS difficult to "keep the pews (and church coffers) full," so they banned suicide*...but it's important to remember that this ban went against the early church practice....Remember the saints who'd committed suicide....a relevant example would be St. Pelagia of Antioch, who killed herself to evade being captured by soldiers....or Vibia Pertpetua, who refused to recant her faith even while facing death in the arena.)
*Also relevant is the context of this ban....it was done against the wish of church conservatives, who were opposed to collaborator Bishops being allowed to continue to give communion, etc. (Council of Braga, c. 561).