{"id":185,"date":"2008-10-16T12:34:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-16T12:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2008\/10\/blessed-are-the-martyrs-who-die-in-the-lord-henceforth.html"},"modified":"2008-10-16T12:34:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-16T12:34:00","slug":"blessed-are-the-martyrs-who-die-in-the-lord-henceforth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2008\/10\/blessed-are-the-martyrs-who-die-in-the-lord-henceforth.html","title":{"rendered":"Blessed are the Martyrs who Die in the Lord Henceforth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_MCBNSn1DlAU\/SPdwRe05NvI\/AAAAAAAABlY\/sNTBSoEBM7g\/s1600-h\/13india01-600.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin:0px auto 10px;text-align:center;cursor:pointer;cursor:hand\" src=\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_MCBNSn1DlAU\/SPdwRe05NvI\/AAAAAAAABlY\/sNTBSoEBM7g\/s400\/13india01-600.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>If you are at all a student of Christian history, you will know there have been numerous martyrdoms of Christians in every age of the Christian era.  You don&#8217;t even need to consult a hagiographic work like Foxe&#8217;s Book of Martyrs to know this is true. <\/p>\n<p>I was in Turkey two years ago when some indigenous Christians in the eastern part of the country were brutally murdered by their Muslim neighbors. <\/p>\n<p>This week we have the report in the NY Times of similar murders in India by Hindus.  Here is the link:<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/10\/13\/world\/asia\/13india.html?th&amp;emc=th<\/p>\n<p>Christians are forced to renounce their faith in exchange for safety, or else face marytrdom. This has been going on for weeks in India, but our national news of course has hardly mentioned the fact.  This ought to be stunning to us since India is the world&#8217;s largest democracy and officially a tolerant secular state. Hindus make up the majority of citizens in India, whilst Christians are only about 2% of the population or so. <\/p>\n<p>The article goes on to say that in the eastern state of Orissa, &#8220;in Kandhamal, the district that has seen the greatest violence, more than 30 people have been killed, 3,000 homes burned and over 130 churches destroyed, including the tin-roofed Baptist prayer hall where the Digals worshiped. Today it is a heap of rubble on an empty field, where cows blithely graze.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>We need to pray for these folks, and for the cessation of the violence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you are at all a student of Christian history, you will know there have been numerous martyrdoms of Christians in every age of the Christian era. You don&#8217;t even need to consult a hagiographic work like Foxe&#8217;s Book of Martyrs to know this is true. I was in Turkey two years ago when some&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Blessed are the Martyrs who Die in the Lord Henceforth - The Bible and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2008\/10\/blessed-are-the-martyrs-who-die-in-the-lord-henceforth.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Blessed are the Martyrs who Die in the Lord Henceforth - The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you are at all a student of Christian history, you will know there have been numerous martyrdoms of Christians in every age of the Christian era. You don&#8217;t even need to consult a hagiographic work like Foxe&#8217;s Book of Martyrs to know this is true. I was in Turkey two years ago when some&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2008\/10\/blessed-are-the-martyrs-who-die-in-the-lord-henceforth.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-10-16T12:34:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_MCBNSn1DlAU\/SPdwRe05NvI\/AAAAAAAABlY\/sNTBSoEBM7g\/s400\/13india01-600.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ben Witherington\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Blessed are the Martyrs who Die in the Lord Henceforth - The Bible and Culture","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2008\/10\/blessed-are-the-martyrs-who-die-in-the-lord-henceforth.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Blessed are the Martyrs who Die in the Lord Henceforth - The Bible and Culture","og_description":"If you are at all a student of Christian history, you will know there have been numerous martyrdoms of Christians in every age of the Christian era. 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A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&amp;E, and the PAX Network.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/author\/bwitherington"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}