ABSTRACT
True Christian masochists and Christian masochists by proxy are likely to be very different kinds of people. For example, Christian masochists who flagellated themselves in public or in private during the late medieval period were unlike their run-of-the-mill Christian contemporaries. From the perspective of simple human decency, compassionate resistance to the oppression of fellow human beings is an admirable thing in its own right. Such resistance sometimes even involves risks which facilitate masochism of its own, but this is not true Christian masochism. Liberation theology distorts Jesus’ message of true Christian masochism. Moltmann is of course concerned more with the theology of such masochism than with its specific historical manifestations. The church-sanctioned institution of monasticism was another way to foster true Christian masochism. On one level, monasticism may be regarded as a descendant of the early Christian practice of martyrdom.
