Lest anyone think they are, the general definition of a martyr that I use – and probably most would agree with this – is:
A believer in Christ killed prematurely as a result of human hostility in a situation of witness {and some here add, “as a result of their faith.”}
The bit in brackets is important because the original word “martyr” was the word used for “witness.” We only came to associate “martyr” with “one killed for their faith” because so many in the Early Church were. So if a believer in Iraq is killed as a result of a robbery gone bad – is he a martyr or not? Different people will have different answers to that. (I generally waffle on the subject. If I were about to be killed, would I be trying to convert my captors? But I don’t live in repressive regimes. They might be.)
In any event, those killed in Haiti were definitely killed prematurely, but not as a result of human hostility. Their deaths are tragic, nevertheless. We grieve for those who have been lost. We grieve even more for those who were lost apart from Christ.
