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As an explicitly christological witness, martyrdom offers a limited but vital description of the present within the various and unpredictable arenas of living, suffering, and dying. That is to say, martyrdom is not the tragic conclusion of some fatal ideological conflict but a momentary truthful glimpse of present circumstances. Martyrdom reveals, clarifies, and illumines what we take for the real. Martyrs are therefore significant for the church today because they exhibit the sort of truthful living that refuses the claims of history and power without Christ; they show the sort of living and dying that returns forgiveness upon murder, and patience beyond domination. Meditating primarily on the second-century martyrdoms in Lyons and Vienne, France, Pilgrim Holiness offers a view of Christian martyrdom that challenges prevalent misunderstandings about what martyrs are doing in sacrificing their lives. Joshua J. Whitfield argues that martyrdom is a moment of truthful disclosure and thus a moment of forgiveness and peace--gifts for which we are in desperate need.
Joshua J Whitfield
Rev. Joshua J. Whitfield is pastor of St. Rita Catholic Community in Dallas, Texas, where he has served in a variety of roles since his conversion to Catholicism in 2009. Whitfield previously served as an Episcopal priest and was ordained in the Catholic Church under the pastoral provision of St. John Paul II in 2012.
Whitfield is a contributor to The Dallas Morning News, for which he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2016. His work also has been published in The Texas Catholic, Newsday, and America magazine. He has appeared on Catholic Answers Focus and local television affiliates in Dallas. Whitfield is the author of Pilgrim Holiness.
He is a 1999 graduate of Texas Tech University, with a bachelor's degree in English and history. He trained for ministry at the College of the Resurrection in Mirfield, England, from 2000 to 2003, while earning bachelor's and master's degrees in theology and a master's degree in theology and pastoral studies from the University of Leeds. He earned his master's degree in theology from Duke University in 2008.
Whitfield and his wife, Alli, live in Dallas with their children.
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