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by tachyoff 3034 days ago
Not a Christian, but I spend a lot of time at church (long story). Anyway, self-sacrifice is one of the central tenets of Christianity, the idea being that Jesus Christ took on human form to suffer and die on the cross to save humanity from its grievous sins. As a result, self-sacrifice and martyrdom come up all the time in the Bible [1].

I'm not particularly good at actual theology, and I'm sure different sects of Christianity have different interpretations, but as I understand it, because of Christ's sacrifice, personal suffering is seen as something noble, or even venerable. I think it's easy to take this too far (e.g. people not accepting help because it's "noble" to suffer, or that they "deserve it"), but I digress.

[1] https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Self-Sacrifice