Scott: Not to quibble- because you’re a nice man, and funny too :) but using your line of thinking…

The four International Mission Board personnel killed in Iraq this week are not Christian martyrs. They were there working with water treatment, etc., and were likely killed for being Americans. Same with the IMB workers last year in Yemen who were shot in their hospital. Again, the motive appears political. By removing the reasons a person is in harms way as a consideration in Christian martyrdom, you make the only martyrs people like Graham Staines. In fact, Jim Elliott wouldn’t qualify by your definition, because the people who killed him and the others had no idea who they were or why they were in Ecuador.

And the mission of Jesus to redeem the world was a totally unique mission. Judging MLK or any other person fighting for social justice by the standard that “Jesus didn’t do it while he was here,” doesn’t work, in my view, because 1) Jesus was here to die on a cross for the sin of the world and 2) The Old Testament and the New Testament are pretty loud in advocating social justice.

Just a thought.