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Self-sacrifice: From the act of violence to the passion of love
Abstract
The paper discusses the problem of self-sacrifice as posed by Derrida in Foi et Savior and by Schiller in the Theosophie des Julius. Whereas Derrida understands self-sacrifice as an act of violence against oneself in order not to subject others to violence, Schiller rightly insists that one must distinguish between egotistical and altruistic self-sacrifice. But even this doesn't go far enough: Altruistic self-sacrifice is different from suffering death as the consequence of an entirely unselfish love. Whoever loses his life out of love does not give it up for others, whether selfishly or unselfishly. He loves the other—to death. Such a death is not a (self-) sacrifice. It results from a passion of love, not an act of violence against oneself.
... This stance correlates with the concept of 'love in a theology of pain,' which emphasizes that God understands human pain through sacrificial parental love (Jeanrond, 2010). In other words, self-sacrifice is an expression of love for others (Dalferth, 2010). Christian love, therefore, involves cultivating the intention and disposition to share in the suffering of others. ...
This study focused on the experience of the Catholic Church in Ruteng Diocese, Eastern Indonesia, and aimed to investigate the humanitarian actions of religious actors and institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic. A qualitative method was used to examine how the diocese engaged in charity and humanitarian actions in response to the adverse impact of the pandemic on individuals and communities. Furthermore, valuable insights are provided on the spiritual foundations of the diocese’s humanitarian actions, consolidation of resources and solidarity, forms of involvement, targets, and challenges faced. In addition, this study offers a conceptual contribution to the understanding of faith-based crisis management and the need for further investigation on related topics.
... In this regard, memorials to murdered women sit uncomfortably in relation to nationalising hegemonies of war commemoration and civic achievement and its representations of an ideal type of heroic, courageous and protective masculinity. The altruism of self-sacrifice codified in war commemoration contrasts with the narcissistic egoism of intimate partner/ex-partner femicide (Beers, 1992;Dalferth, 2010). Memorials to murdered women produce a tension and contradiction between the masculine ideal type of war commemoration in counter-narratives of non-heroic or anti-heroic masculinity. ...
This paper examines the emergence and trajectory of a vernacular femicide memorial tree at Mount Gravatt (Meanjin/Brisbane) which is juxtaposed with established and regulated official commemorative placemaking practices in this social geography. The paper explores the implicit rules about marking gender in official publics of commemoration, arguing that they perform or conversely risk a doubling of women’s invisibility through assimilation into symbols and aesthetic conventions of seemingly settled history and settled subjects. They can become barely noticeable for the kinds of messages they may seek to publicly speak and breakthrough in encounter. Conventional commemoration of violence against women also risks positioning women as ‘victims’ by not unsettling that position through passive, familiar and assimilationist design forms and narrative tropes. Importantly, memorials that address violence against women and intimate femicide should contest ‘active forgetting’ by insisting that this is a public facing, collective issue of responsibility against resistant effacements, disavowal, and sequestration into the private sphere and personal life.
Morality and immorality is a complex issue in Martin Luther's thought and the complexity increases the more he unfolds the topic. In the course of his controversy with Erasmus, he meets a well founded criticism of his own moralization. In the first three sections of this article I discuss their respective positions and the consequences of a moral vs. an immoral interpretation of Scripture. In the last three sections I proceed to inquire whether immorality or rather a-morality may play a more basic and principal role for the interpretation of scriptures in general. The distinction between Scripture as a particular text corpus and the scripturality of the scriptures thereby becomes critical. I suggest that the latter plays a crucial role in Luther's radical criticism and destruction of the moral subsumption of theology, with consequences for a current reassessment of the sola scriptura.
Feminist scholars adopt wide-ranging views of self-sacrifice: their critiques claim that women are inordinately affected by Christianity's valorization of self-sacrifice and that this traditional Christian value is inherently misogynistic and necrophilic. Although Søren Kierkegaard's Works of Love deems Christian love essentially sacrificial, love, in his view, sets significant limits on the role of self-sacrifice in human life. Through his proposed response to one who requests forgiveness, “Do you now truly love me?” Kierkegaard offers a model of forgiveness that subverts traditional ideals of the self-sacrificing and submissive woman while keeping love central. The question asserts self-love, involves redoubling and double danger, and expresses a refusal to imitate Christ's suffering. I propose a reading in keeping with Grace Jantzen's vision for a feminist philosophy of religion, which reads against the grain and “seeks to break through to new ways of thinking that may open up divine horizons.” My reading is further supported by Kierkegaard's contention that everything essentially Christian bears a double meaning. In light of the subversive potential found in the discrepancy between apparent love and actual love, as well as the duty to name the sin of one who has behaved in an unloving manner, I argue that Kierkegaard's philosophy of love resists simplistic understandings of self-sacrificing love.