The Purple Crown
The Politics of Martyrdom
by Tripp York
Foreword by John D. Roth
Imprint: Wipf and Stock
200 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 x 0.40 in
- Paperback
- 9781532694370
- Published: January 2020
$26.00 / £23.00
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The Purple Crown exhibits how Christianity's ultimate act of witnessing, martyrdom, is an inherently political act. York argues that the path of Christianity leads to a confrontation with the same powers that crucified Jesus.
Tripp York goes outside of the normal understandings of public theology and points to the most powerful persuaders within Christian history: the martyrs. The martyrs remind us of the moment in which all the world was simultaneously exposed as fallen and redeemed, of Christ's death and resurrection.
In York's telling, just as the martyrs' deaths reveals Christ, so too their lives bear witness to the City of God, exposing those powers and principalities that crucified Jesus and continue to crucify him through his followers. He includes the biography of the El Salvador priest Oscar Romero.
Tripp York, PhD, teaches in the Religious Studies Department at Virginia Wesleyan College in Norfolk, Virginia. He is the author or editor of a dozen books, including The Devil Wears Nada, Third Way Allegiance, and the three-volume series The Peaceable Kingdom.
“Reading the martyrs well means that Christians are to enact a heavenly kind of politics that is simultaneously an earthly alternative to the despair of ‘secular’ politics, both left and right. Deftly weaving historical and contemporary narratives with theological analysis, York shows how martyrs overcome the dichotomy of religion and politics and restore hope to God’s good creation. This book is clearly written and ecumenically minded. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the relevance of martyrdom to contemporary discipleship.”
—William T. Cavanaugh, University of St. Thomas
“Christian Martyrdom is posed by The Purple Crown as the loving sacrifice which sustains the witness of God’s global nation—the church— against the honorable sacrifice of sword-bearing armies that presume to protect and defend the earthly nations which demand our loyalty. This book helps to explain why the church needs to keep telling the stories of martyrs and how those stories assist the church in making a loving and persuasive witness to the peace proclaimed and accomplished in the life of Jesus Christ amidst nations that continue to lift up military heroes as the makers of history and the bearers of peace.”
—Gerald J. Mast, Bluffton University
“For anyone perplexed by the logic of Christian martyrdom or uncertain about its contemporary relevance, Tripp York’s The Purple Crown merits a careful reading.”
—John D. Roth, Goshen College, from the Foreword