Martyrdom as Witness

It's well known that Mohammedan terrorists (and yes, they are in fact Islamic terrorists, and followers of Mohammed all) which have been running ISIS have been murdering many. Ditto, and perhaps on a greater scale, for Boko Haram, but they're largely forgotten for now.

The victims include a variety of people--Jews, (alleged) Gays, and (most prominently) "Nazarenes," that is, Christians. One recent group includes a set of 21 Coptic Christians who were beheaded. Or, so the narrative has gone. In actual fact, there were 20 Coptic Christians who were beheaded by ISIS, and one man who was not Christian but who converted upon seeing the other 20 refuse to deny Christ even on pain of death.

Truly is martyrdom the seed of the Church, including the various schisms and smaller sects. We're all Christian in the end.

A Few Good Links (vol. 17)

For some reason it's more difficult for me to post on Mondays on my current schedule. I don't know why, but it is.

1. Professor Robert P. George is leading a group of seven people who have offered to take 100 lashes each in solidarity with Raif Badawi, the Saudi Arabian blogger who was sentenced to 1000 lashes and 10 years in jail for violating sharia. The offered to take these lashes so that he wouldn't have to.
2. My co-blogger will probably be disappointed to learn that the video of the Danish archer is apparently more about audience gullibility than actual archery skill.
3. An interesting topic which I have discussed before is back on the blogosphere (kind of): Edward Feser and the Nicene Guys both discuss Monogenism and Polygenism and the question of human origins.
4. One problem with the modern view of the world is that it conflates vocation with career. The two are not identical.
5. President Obama continues his war against the middle class. Really, a war against anyone who didn't vote for him, which is in some ways actually worse than simply a war against the middle class, since that one is at least not in principle personal.
6. Vintage Christianity, summarized. I disagree with his assessment of how the Reformers went back to how the Church was in its earliest days (some may have thought that's what they were doing), but the rest is a good read.
7. There's nothing wrong with the "seamless garment" metaphor as applied to Catholic social teaching, but it is unfortunately used with some frequency as a cover for hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty.

As always, I would lie to revisit some of these links--but I probably won't!