Why should society care about the persecution of Christians?

Believers revere martyrs, but others are also inspired by sacrifice.

Ryan Gilfeather

Ryan Gilfeather explores social issues through the lens of philosophy, theology, and history. He is a Research Associate at the Joseph Centre for Dignified Work.

A stone monument within which set, in the shape of a cross are statues of numerous standing praying figures.

Martyrs monument, Nagasaki, Japan.

The story of Christian martyrdom began with the death of St Stephen. On the 26th December 36 AD, Stephen the Deacon proclaimed the Christian faith before the rabbinic court in Jerusalem. His apology enraged the crowd before him. They dragged him outside of the city gates and stoned him until he perished. Looked at from one angle, all we see is chaos, fear and violence. Viewed from another perspective, however, we see remarkable courage and love for God. Stephen’s love for God so consumed his heart and mind, that he preferred to die violently than turn against Him. He became the first Christian martyr, a term which means ‘witness’ in the original Greek, because he would rather testify to his belief in Christ than live. We also use this term because his death says something about the character of God. Those who follow Christ take on his virtues. Stephen’s death showed how he possessed God’s virtues of courage and love more than the average believer.

More stories of martyrdom emerged from the first three centuries after the death of Christ. A number of sources have told of the harrowing death of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste. Each presented it differently. Basil of Caesarea recounted how the Roman emperor enacted a law, making it illegal to confess faith in Christ. As an imperial official was posting up the law in a public place and demanding obedience, forty soldiers stood up and declared, ‘I am a Christian.’ The official promised them riches and high office to deny their belief in Christ. But they did not relent. He threatened violence and they remained steadfast. They said that because of their love for God they would readily accept torture on the wheel, by screws, and being burned alive. In response the official exposed them to the cold, where they stood until they froze to death. In this story, these same two perspectives emerge. One reveals violent death at the hands of a state scared of the consequences of people refusing to sacrifice to the pagan gods. The other speaks of people full of love for God, and the courage and integrity to refuse to turn their backs on Him.

The martyrs show us that the virtues we need so often grow out of suffering and struggle.

Stories about martyrdom punctuated the worshipping life of the Early Church. Each year as the anniversary of a martyr’s death rolled around, crowds would gather at their tombs. Singing hymns, they held a candlelit vigil all night. In the morning the crowds processed into the tomb, where the bishop celebrated the eucharist and gave a speech commemorating their violent deaths. By the fourth century, each region celebrated dozens of different martyr festivals. These were joyful and ecstatic occasions. Early Christians treasured the opportunity to honour the martyr’s memory through commemoration.

They also invested these stories with great spiritual potential. The martyrs were seen to be guides in the path of holiness. The deaths of St Stephen and the Forty Matyrs of Sebaste revealed how to express one’s love for God: to treasure Him so much in one’s heart, that nothing is worth denying one’s belief and trust in Him. Additionally, early Christian writers began to articulate that these stories also inspire and embolden their audiences to imitate the martyrs. Until the early fourth century, when Christianity became legally tolerated, some Christians faced the choice of denying Christ or death. For these Christians, the stories of the martyrs showed them that the Christian life involved proclaiming their faith and facing death, and crucially it gave them the inner strength to follow it through. After Christianity was made legal, Christians still saw the martyrs as spiritual guides. They revealed how to express courage and love for God in the face of hardship. These stories ignited a fire of zeal to imitate the martyrs in some way.

They are, I propose, also of great inspiration to those who do not think of themselves as Christians. The martyrs reveal to us how a love for God generates virtues we prize so greatly in society, namely courage, integrity, and faithfulness. If it were not for love for God, Stephen and the other martyrs would not have chosen to suffer, and they wouldn’t have expressed these precious qualities. In short, they give insight into how Christians understand love for God to be the wellspring for those precious virtues. The martyrs show us that the virtues we need so often grow out of suffering and struggle. In a sense, they reveal the value of suffering for virtue. However, they do not encourage us to suffer for its own sake. Rather, they reveal that the full expression of love for God can so often involve suffering and struggle. When Christians faithfully say yes to this hardship out of love for God, it transforms them into the embodiments of these precious virtues, which perhaps we need more than ever today, in an age where comfort and ease seems the goal of life.

Snippet

Creed

Fun & play

Music

12 August 2025

2 min read

The nuns leaning into the serious business of fun

The beats breaking down barriers

Jamie Mulvaney

Jamie is Vicar of St Michael's Chester Square, London.

Sister Marizele and Sister Marisa.

Summer is for letting your hair down and water pistols. But in an age where we're super-soaked with content online, how did a couple of nuns in Brazil emerge through the saturation? As Sister Marizele sang and beatboxed, Sister Marisa danced on a Brazilian Catholic television show. They've now recorded their song, 'Vocation'.

Even though their online content was more about vocation than vacation, it's attracted huge numbers. “Why did something so simple and spontaneous take on such a huge scale?” asked Sister Marizele, “Because the Holy Spirit wants to touch people’s hearts.” “But besides the Holy Spirit,” she told the New York Times, “there’s also the algorithm.”

The algorithm's clearly helped. One of the nuns' colleagues came back from vacation to keep the content going online. Instead of only a handful of prospective nuns per year, they had over 50 women get in touch in a matter of days to ask about embarking on the life of a nun ahead. The nuns believe that God wants to draw young people to church in a country where church attendance has dropped off a cliff. Perhaps they should seek advice from Whoopi Goldberg, who has given them her blessing as a 'real-life ‘Sister Act’.

They aren't the only ones. Father David Michael is an American Catholic priest on Instagram (sometimes breakdancing) with 1.2 million followers who combines an uncompromising message with a sophisticated understanding of the need to hook people in the first three seconds of a video. This all doesn't paint the the staid picture of the church we expect. The iconoclastic act of beatboxing on TV isn't just breaking down beats, but the image of religion as being fun-averse.

Perhaps there's more to fun than meets the eye. We might misconceive fun as shallow, frivolous and lacking in depth. But you can be both a nun, and fun. Maybe it's not just a case of unexpected possibility, but actually intrinsic to those with vocations in faith.

Yesterday I returned from a crematorium in the front passenger seat of the empty hearse. The driver, along with hilarious stories of funerals gone wrong, also told me about losing his own child ten years ago. 'They say time's a great healer. But it isn't. You don't get over it. You learn to cope with not getting over it.' Those who have suffered and still carry unimaginable pain can know what it is to laugh.

It's a similar depth of fun from the nuns that can speak into pain. Far from a gimmick, their skills haven't just been breaking down beats, but barriers. According to Sister Marizele, they've been "an instrument to become closer and break down barriers" with young women at drug and alcohol rehabilitation centres, where they otherwise had little to connect over.

It might seem an odd segue, but it's striking that Jesus' first miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding party. The sheer abundance of the wine signifies the abundance of what's possible when nuns lean into fun: restoration and community for addicts, purpose for people considering their calling, and – simply – joy. Joy for countless millions around the world watching on. Joy, as CS Lewis said, is the serious business of heaven.