The Church’s foundation is built upon the blood of martyrs. So said Tertullian, in the 2nd Century. It converted not only the pagan Roman Empire, but also, much later, the Norsemen.
The unintentional martyrdoms have already begun, in Nashville and Minneapolis. It comes because the teachings of religious institutions of authentic Christianity are well known, and therefore angers those who have been victims, not of Christianity, but of the unnatural values of a soulless and hopeless culture.
That is what I wrote in my last column. What I meant by “unintentional” martyrs were the innocent children killed in Nashville and Minneapolis, like the children devoured by lions in the Roman era. They were killed because their parents were bearing witness to Christ, themselves too young to fully understand what they were dying for. They were in Christian education because of the love their parents had for them, as they were only beginning to learn what it meant to be a Christian…