Martyrdom and American Gay History: Secular Advocacy, Christian Ideas, and Gay Assimilation" is an analysis of gay martyr discourses from the 1970s through 2014. In particular, the dissertation examines the archives, narrative representations, memorials, and media depictions of Harvey Milk, Matthew Shepard, Tyler Clementi, and AIDS. The project's primary focus is to investigate the role of religious rhetoric in facilitating American gay assimilation. Discourses of gay martyrdom reveal that secular gay advocates habitually employed Protestant Christian ideas in order to present gay Americans as similar to the dominant culture of straight Christians, a strategy that became increasingly prevalent by the end of the twentieth century after gays were blamed for spreading a national plague through sexual licentiousness. In turn, discourses of gay martyrdom expose the recurrence of Christian ideas in promoting, while concurrently foreclosing, the parameters of gay social inclusion. "Martyrdom and American Gay History" also questions the politics of martyrdom and analyzes why some deaths have been mourned as national tragedies. Milk, Shepard, and Clementi, the three most commonly-invoked gay martyrs, represent a narrow fraction of gay Americans that only includes white, middle-class, gay men. The dissertation demonstrates that discourses of gay martyrdom have promoted assimilation, not diverse sexual freedoms or capacious possibilities for queer lives. Ultimately, Protestant Christian dominance in the United States has been obfuscated whenever Christianity has been depicted primarily as an antigay monolith. Discourses of gay martyrdom reveal the role of Protestant Christian dominance in secular gay advocacy, and the ways in which Christian ideas have shaped and foreclosed possibilities for acceptable gay American citizens. / Religion

Submitted by Noeme Timbo (noeme.timbo@metodista.br) on 2017-01-25T17:03:24Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Denilson Matos.pdf: 754229 bytes, checksum: 8558b47d13c368319d34b07f0d57a4b5 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-01-25T17:03:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Denilson Matos.pdf: 754229 bytes, checksum: 8558b47d13c368319d34b07f0d57a4b5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-10-03 / Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq / The purpose of this research is to analyze the Passio Sanctorum Perpetuae et Felicitatis, highlighting how this martyrdom report presents its main characters, that is, as the martyrs are built narratively. The research works martyrdom in early Christianity as a discursive phenomenon, that is, as a practice that emerges from a discursive interaction between the main cultures in constant dialogue in the early centuries of the Christian era, Greco-Roman, Jewish and Christian. For this analysis, we will dialogue with the works of Judith Perkins and Candida Moss, Christine Trevett, William Tabbernee, Rex D. Butler, among others, as well as we will use the dialogic concept of Mikhail Bakhtin. The research also discusses the latest research about the martyrdom theme. By examining this ideology developed in early Christianity could identify the discursive construction of a character linked to the practice martyrdom, the martyr. We present the various characteristics attributed to the martyr in a corpus of early Christian texts known as Acts of the martyrs, highlighting the high status achieved by these men and women who faced death. The martyr, to face and experience death receives invaluable powers, which makes it a special person, an ideal Christian who is above the ecclesiastical hierarchy and even the heavenly hierarchy. The Passio Sanctorum perpetuae et Felicitatis is an example of early Christian literature that shares these ideas that pervade the early centuries of the Christian era. By analyzing the plot of the narrative composition of martyrdom report identified traces of the discourse on martyrdom and the martyr present in early Christianity. / O propósito desta pesquisa é analisar a Passio Sanctorum Perpetuae et Felicitatis, destacando como este relato de martírio apresenta suas personagens principais, isto é, como os mártires são construídos narrativamente. A pesquisa trabalha o martírio no cristianismo primitivo como um fenômeno discursivo, ou seja, como uma prática surge de uma interação discursiva entre as principais culturas em constante diálogo nos primeiros séculos da era cristã, a greco-romana, judaica e cristã. Para tal análise, dialogaremos com as obras de Judith Perkins e Candida Moss, Christine Trevett, Willian Tabbernee, Rex D. Butler, entre outros, bem como nos utilizaremos do conceito de dialogismo de Mikhail Bakhtin. A pesquisa discute, também, as mais recentes pesquisas acerca do tema do martírio. Ao examinar esta ideologia desenvolvida no cristianismo primitivo pôde-se identificar a construção discursiva de uma personagem atrelada à prática martírio, o mártir. Apresentamos as diversas características atribuídas ao mártir num corpo de textos do cristianismo primitivo conhecidos como Atas dos mártires, destacando o status elevado alcançados por esses homens e mulheres que enfrentaram a morte. O mártir, ao enfrentar e experimentar a morte recebe poderes inestimáveis, que o torna uma pessoa especial, um cristão ideal que se encontra acima da hierarquia eclesiástica e até mesmo da hierarquia celestial. A Passio Sanctorum Perpetuae et Felicitatis é um exemplo de literatura cristã primitiva que partilha dessas ideias que perpassam os primeiros séculos da era cristã. Ao analisar o enredo da composição narrativa deste relato de martírio identificamos traços do discurso sobre o martírio e sobre o mártir presentes no cristianismo primitivo.

This thesis investigates the phenomenon of making martyrs in the Protestant Church in Korea (PCK) especially the relationship between the institution and the designation. Tracing the historical development of ideology of martyrdom linguistically and semantically from the pre-Constantinian base-line, the writer points out that martyrdom is not a fixed or universal concept but is variously employed in different times, settings, and places to justify, legitimate and memorialise a death in a specific group and frequently for a specific reason or purpose. It may also be directly linked with the identity of one persecuted community setting a firm boundary between it and the hostile persecuting group. Furthermore, the designation of martyr is an intentional act which speak to the living not the dead. In other words, martyrdom is a part of the interpretive semantics of a particular death seen by particular lives for particular purposes. Martyrdom pertains to the politics of death, yet at the same time to the politics of the living. Martyrs for the PCK represent three major periods of Korean Protestants’ death-events: the late Chosun Dynasty (1866-1905), the rule of Japanese imperialism (1905-1945), and before and during the Korean War (1945-1953). Most Protestant Christians’ deaths occurred as a result of a clash between religion and the political power represented in each era. The PCK only started to ‘make martyrs’ by collecting and interpreting the first such deaths after 1926 and increasingly from 1983 onwards. However, their work of martyr-making has exposed PCK leaders to misusing the term, by including death after natural disasters and accidents. It is arguable that the situation in post-World War II Korea was such that the strands of anticommunism and ethnic nationalism profoundly influenced the historicity of the death-event. Martyr-making processes in the PCK context, therefore, functioned politically to define the persistently common enemy of communism and anti-nationalism, mobilizing Christians against them, and justifying creative martyr-making by its effect. Thus it will be argued that martyr-making is part of the power structure of the PCK: and power, any power, always has the potential to be wrongly used. To analyse the operation of PCK’s martyr-making more specifically, this thesis includes two case studies. The first is of Rev R. J. Thomas who is said to be ‘the first Protestant martyr in Korea,’ whose martyr status was tentatively designated in 1926 and elevated at the time of the 1884-1984 celebration of Protestantism in Korea. And the second is Rev Son Yang-Won, widely known as ‘the atomic bomb of love’ from 1948 when he adopted the killer of his two sons amid the ideological conflict between the leftist and rightist, whose reputation as the ‘martyr of love’ increased from 1950 immediately after being killed by communists in the early stage of the Korean War. The Thomas case uncovers the ethnic nationalistic tendency of the PCK’s martyr-making, and their anticommunist attitude in the treatment of Rev Son. In short, it will be argued that PCK leaders controlled the collective memory about deaths in the specific historical contexts to sustain their socio-political views, placing and displacing some death-events to commemorate some or intentionally exclude others, based as much on the ruling ideologies of South Korean society, mainly anticommunism and ethnic nationalism, as on the image of Jesus’ death. What this may mean for the PCK now and in future is briefly explored in the final comment.

<p>According to the Syriac <italic>Acts of the Persian Martyrs</italic>, the Sasanian king Shapur II began persecuting Christians in Persia soon after Constantine's death in 337 CE. Previous studies of the <italic>Acts</italic> (and related material) set Shapur's persecution within the context of Constantine's support for Christianity in the Roman Empire. Religious allegiances are said to have been further amplified during the Roman-Persian war over Rome's Mesopotamian provinces that followed Constantine's death. According to most interpretations, by the mid-fourth century <italic>Christianitas</italic> had become coextensive with <italic>Romanitas</italic>: Persian Christians were persecuted because they worshipped Caesar's god and, thereby, allied themselves with Rome. </p><p>By contrast, this dissertation reconsiders Christian historical narratives, the rhetorical and identity-shaping nature of the martyrological genre, and assumptions about the clear divisions of religious groups in late antiquity. Although the notion of Christianity as a "Roman" religion can be found in some of the historiography of persecution in Persia, our knowledge about Christians in fourth-century Persia is a harmonized event history woven from a tapestry of vague and conflicting sources that often exhibit later religious, political, and hagiographical agendas. </p><p> </p><p>To demonstrate how Shapur's persecution came to be interpreted as the result of religious changes within the Roman Empire, the dissertation first reconsiders how Constantine is imagined as a patron of the Christians of Persia in Syriac and Greek sources. The second part looks at the ways by which constructed imperial ideals territorialized "religion" in the post-Constantinian era. Finally, the third part presents the first English translations of the <italic>Martyrdom and History of Simeon bar Sabba'e</italic>, a fourth-century Persian bishop whose martyr acts are central to the historiography of the period.</p> / Dissertation

The principal contention of this thesis is that the earliest Christians viewed the crucifixion of Jesus as paradigmatic for discipleship, confirmation of which can be found in the history and function of a particular saying ascribed to Jesus, namely the ‘cross saying’ (Mk 8:34 and par.). To verify this claim, I explore both the literary tradition and material culture of early Christianity as they relate to the cross saying, explicating the various ways that “taking up the cross” functioned to ensure unwavering loyalty to Jesus. Taking a traditional exegetical approach, I also engage recent work on sapiential literature (mainly Q) and Historical Jesus studies, observing the diverse ways in which the first several generations of Jesus’ followers adapted this saying—both as an aphorism for inclusion in gospels, and in the development of cognate versions useful in more theological settings (e.g., Gal 2:20). Proceeding diachronically via a textual analysis of the cross saying in Q, the Synoptics, and then the Gospel of Thomas, I trace the ways in which the composers of these texts addressed the different social situations of their audiences in an effort to secure commitment to Jesus (or, in the case of Gos. Thom., conformity to his enlightened teachings). Then, turning from the literature to the social and political environment of the New Testament, I note the radical reversal, occurring early in Christian thought, which transformed the crucifixion of Jesus from a shameful social experience into one of honour, and worthy of emulation. Even more significant in terms of current research, I break from the opinions of several New Testament scholars in finding little evidence that the cross saying (presuming it was dominical) functioned as a call to political insurrection. Rather, as evidenced in Christian material culture from the second and third centuries (symbols, the orant prayer posture, making the ‘sign of the cross,’ and so on), the association of crucifixion with discipleship was understood primarily in terms of religious devotion to Jesus.

<p>This study approaches Óscar Romero by attending to his intimate involvement in and concern for the problematic surrounding the reform of Salvadoran agriculture and the conflict over property and possession underlying it. In this study, I situate Romero in relation to the concentration of landholding and the production of landlessness in El Salvador over the course of the twentieth century, and I examine his participation in the longstanding societal and ecclesial debate about agrarian reform provoked by these realities. I try to show how close attention to agrarian reform and what was at stake in it can illumine not only the conflict that occasioned Romero’s martyrdom but the meaning of the martyrdom itself. </p><p>Understanding Romero’s involvement in the debate about agrarian reform requires sustained attention to how it takes its bearings from the line of thinking about property and possession for which Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum stands as a new beginning. The enclyclical tradition developing out of Leo’s pontificate is commonly referred to as Catholic social doctrine or Catholic social teaching. Romero’s and the Church’s participation in the debate about agrarian reform in El Salvador is unintelligible apart from it. </p><p>What Romero and the encyclical tradition share, I argue, is an understanding of creation as a common gift, from which follows a distinctive construal of property and the demands of justice with respect to possessing it. On this view, property does not name, as it is often taken to mean, the enclosure of what is common for the exclusive use of its possessors—something to be held by them over and against others. Rather, property and everything related to its holding derive from the claim that creation is a gift given to human creatures in common. The acknowledgement of creation as a common gift gives rise to what I describe in this study as a politics of common use, of which agrarian reform is one expression. </p><p>In Romero’s El Salvador, those who took the truth of creation as common gift seriously—those who spoke out against or opposed the ubiquity of the concentration of land and who clamored for agrarian reform so that the landless and land-poor could have access to land to cultivate for subsistence—suffered greatly as a consequence. I argue that, among other things, their suffering shows how, under the conditions of sin and violence, those who work to ensure that others have access to what is theirs in justice often risk laying down their lives in charity. In other words, they witness to the way that God’s work to restore creation has a cruciform shape. Therefore, while the advocacy for agrarian reform begins with the understanding of creation as common gift, the testimony to this truth in word and in deed points to the telos of the gift and the common life in the crucified and risen Lord in which it participates</p> / Dissertation

The main focus of the thesis is the concept of jihad and martyrdom in Islam. It seeks to present these religious ideas from very diverse perspectives and argues that seemingly discontinuous dimensions are all parts of the nature of the phenomenon. In the world of Islam, religion is an omnipresent aspect of a public life. Hence, the historical experience, culture, socio-economics, and politics, they all manifest in religious narratives. Martyrdom embodies these complexities as well. Historically and culturally, martyrdom has been perceived as an expression of utmost activism in the struggle of a believer for the betterment of the Islamic society. Leading a responsible and truthful life sometimes demands the ultimate sacrifice of one's life for the cause. This worldly responsibility for the well-being of the Islamic umma is one dimension of complex dynamics of the Islamist movements like the Palestinian Hamas. For them, martyrdom is only one moment, the climax, which requires leading the whole life as a responsible believer in the first place. In this sense, martyrdom is a celebration of a meaningful life rather than death. This commitment of Hamas to the community, its radical understanding of the politics of the struggle, along with the particular socio-economic, and political situation in...

A Chanson de Roland, obra construída no século XIX como fundadora da literatura francesa, foi bastante explorada ao longo dos últimos 150 anos, muitas vezes com usos políticos, nem sempre expressos. Apesar de exaustivamente trabalhada pelos estudos literários, são quase inexistentes as investigações históricas sobre o seu conteúdo cristão e suas possíveis relações com a legitimação do combate contra os pagãos. Este trabalho investiga de que forma os pagãos são representados na gestas do final do século XI, e como estas constroem uma alteridade através da religião, da moralidade, da territorialidade, e da etnicidade. Investiga também como os cristãos são representados dentro uma unidade pan-européia, numa sobreposição das noções de império e cristandade, e como sua luta contra os pagãos é legitimada, e mesmo santificada, pelas obras, através do martírio dos seus cavaleiros. / The Song of Roland, explored in the nineteenth century as the main text of French literature, was heavily exploited over the past 150 years, often with political uses, not always expressed. Despite extensive work by literary studies, there hardly any historical research on its Christian content and its possible association with the legitimacy of the combat against the pagans. This work investigates how the pagans are represented in the gestas of the late eleventh century, and how they build an otherness through religion, morality, territoriality, and ethnicity.It also investigates how Christians are represented in a pan-European unity, in a superposition of the notions of empire and Christianity, and how their fight against the heathen is legitimated and even sanctified through the martyrdom of their knights.

Cette thèse comporte une édition critique, une traduction et un commentaire de l'Ad martyras, de l'Ad Scapulam et du De fuga in persecutione de Tertullien. Notre édition s’appuie sur une lecture à nouveaux frais des cinq manuscrits principaux transmettant ces textes, sur les éditions humanistes et modernes ainsi que sur les notes de travail d’éditeurs humanistes. Les trois textes évoquent, de trois points de vue différents, les persécutions. Dans l’Ad martyras, où Tertullien s’adresse à des chrétiens emprisonnés, la persécution apparaît comme une épreuve ; dans l’Ad Scapulam, adressé au proconsul de Carthage, il s’agit de détourner la persécution des chrétiens. Enfin, le De fuga in persecutione vise à encourager les chrétiens à s'y soumettre sans se laisser tenter par la fuite. Nous avons été attentives au discours que Tertullien construit à la fois ad extra pour détourner les autorités des persécutions antichrétiennes, et, ad intra, pour encourager les chrétiens dans l'épreuve. / This dissertation consists in the critical edition, French translationand commentary of Tertullian’s Ad Martyras, Ad Scapulam and De fuga in persecutione. The edition is based on a new reading of five of the main manuscripts which contain the texts, on early and modern critical editions and on the readings of lost manuscripts given by humanist sources. The three texts deal with the antichristian persecutions. In the Ad martyras, where Tertullian writes to emprisoned Christians, persecution is seen as a trial ; in the Ad Scapulam, addressed to the Carthaginian proconsul, Tertullian intends to prevent him from persecuting Christians. At last, the treatise De fuga in persecutione encourages Christians to accept persecution even if they can flee it. We paid attention to the speech Tertullian elaborates both ad extra to deter Roman authorities from persecuting and ad intra to support Christians in trial.

This thesis mainly aims to understand the dynamics behind the way in which people who lost family members in the conflict in the Southeastern and Eastern parts of Turkey between the years 1993 and 2006 are positioned as oppositional to each others. It inquires whether their common grief of loosing someone in the family might enable them to act collectively and to ask for peace in Turkey. How are they represented as oppositional groups despite their common grief? Why do they consider each other as belonging to the &ldquo / other side&rdquo / ? How does this kind of representation prevent them from coming together and asking for a peaceful termination of conflict in Turkey? In discussing these questions, the concepts of peace, violence, security, inequalities, terrorism, religion, martyrdom, ideology, and hegemony are drawn upon. Galtung&rsquo / s approach to peace is taken as the general framework. Moreover, martyrdom is considered as key concept that interlinks the other concepts as interviewees conceptualize them.