If we are unwilling that we or our children should ever have to suffer for the name of Jesus, we concoct a Christianity where martyrdom is out of the question. And when martyrdom is no longer considered a possibility, we turn Christianity into a safe and anodyne civil religion in service of the empire. This is not the risky and robust Christianity of Peter and Paul, of Perpetua and Felicity, of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Óscar Romero. For the Christian, martyrdom is always on the table—we signed up for the possibility of martyrdom with our baptism. In fact, in our baptism we have already died
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