Supposedly, Tertullian said “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church” (I can’t find the precise source in my copy of Tertullian’s works).

So you can only imagine my surprise at what I heard in a New Testament Intro class I was teaching last night. As my students were giving group presentations, the student speaking made what was essentially an aside comment in reference to Stephen, the first Christian martyr,

“You might feel it’s odd to think of a Christian martyr. Usually we only hear of Islamic martyrs.”

Such a statement not only reveals a serious lack of knowledge of Christian history, but also a misunderstanding of the word martyr (I’m sorry, but if you take others with you, you’re not a martyr--you’re just a sycophantic coward).

So, I wonder just how widespread this misunderstanding would be in our culture today?

And how did we get to this point?