This is what Strenski calls the “bad math” of sacrifice. Sacrifice means giving up, loss, destruction. Yet most talk promoting sacrifice acts as if these losses are—in reality—gains. Proponents of civic sacrifices in war, for example, routinely argue how the loss of lives in heroic combat actually counts as gain.

Strenski poses the question: To what extent may we conceive of warfare as a sacrificial ritual? Soldiers on the battlefield sometimes are seen as being led “like lambs to the slaughter”—a clear analogy with ritual sacrificial killing. Or, soldiers may be seen as offering their lives on the analogy of Jesus winning salvation for the nation.

What Strenski finds remarkable is how close to the ritual sense of sacrifice—civic sacrifice may become. If the sacrificial ritual “syndrome” involves killing or destruction, giving, eating communally, and finally consecration—do we not also find their analogies in civic sacrifice?

Strenski suggests that in terms of civic sacrifice—a dying for country—gift discourse seems prominent. Similarly, in dying for country, soldiers—at least their memory—become sacred. A consecration occurs. They become heroes, have their names inscribed in immortal stone, etc. As “victims,” soldiers who have died in battle become blameless and without taint. A kind of primal innocence is restored to them, just as the image of the “lamb of God” is taken from the ritual context.

But, Strenski asks, after these correspondences with ritual sacrifice, does the analogy between civic and ritual sacrifice break down? Is there a sense, for example, in which what is sacrificed in warfare (the life of a soldier) is shared and eaten—even figuratively?

Strenski is not certain. But he thinks it is worthwhile to see how far one may extend the analogy between ritual and civic sacrifice.

Ivan Strenski is the Holstein Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Riverside. Author of fifteen books and over 75 articles, he is recognized as one of the world’s foremost authorities on the sociology of religion. Book by Ivan Strenski Revolution in Nepal: An Anthropological and Historical Approach to the People's War For information on ordering, please click here. In this thought-provoking book, Ivan Strenski unpacks the central concepts of religion, politics, and power, and provides a new theoretical framework to think about what they mean in today’s society.

Soldiers sacrifice themselves in battle, but this doesn’t count as diminishment. It actually adds to whatever social body of reference is in play. So, the question is why and how can sacrifice add to the social whole, when, in the fact of destruction and death, it subtracts from the social whole by removing one of its members from the body of the living?

This bizarre and self-conflicted state of public values eventuates in what I call the ‘bad math’ of sacrifice. Sacrifice means loss, giving up or at least giving ‘of:’ destruction and, in many cases, death. But, characteristically, most talk promoting sacrifice acts as if these losses are in reality gains—a paradigm case of ‘addition by subtraction.’ Proponents of civic sacrifice in war, for example, routinely argue how the loss of lives in heroic combat actually counts as gain.

The question is how and why Civic sacrifice is about a kind giving to the community—that in turn produces moral obligation to give further and more broadly. This thesis can be tested empirically in the instances of so-called ‘suicide bombing.’

These deaths are regarded, both by the actors and their communities of reference, as ‘gifts’ to the community, requiring meaningful action in response. They are not meaningless suicides or mere acts of warfare.

Soldiers on the battlefield are seen as being led like ‘lambs to the slaughter’—a clear suggestion of analogies with ritual sacrificial killing. Or, soldiers may be seen as offering their lives on the analogy of Jesus winning salvation for the nation. Similarly, sacrificial death for Israel has as well always been held in high regard and likened to temple ritual.

What I find remarkable is how close to ritual senses of sacrifice the civic ones can become. If the sacrificial ritual ‘syndrome’ involves killing or destruction, giving gifts, cooking/transforming and eating/consuming communally, and finally consecration, do we find their analogies in civic sacrifice? I think so. For example, even when civic sacrifices are only partial —a ‘giving of rather than a total ‘giving up’ of a life, career etc., the ritual model seems to brood over the civic realm.

In terms of the civic sacrifice—a dying for country, or even paying one’s taxes—gift discourse seems prominent. Soldiers give up their lives for/to their country; good citizens give of themselves in paying their taxes or supporting the United Fund, for example. Similarly, in dying for country, the soldier, or at least their memory, becomes ‘sacred.’ A consecration occurs. They become heroes to us all, have their names inscribed in immortal stone, lend their names to public places and institutions, and so on.