Image used with permission by the artist.

Mural by Kirollos Kilada in the St. Pope Kyrillos VI Chapel at St. Paul American Coptic Orthodox Church in Irvine, CA.

Artist’s Website: https://kkilada.com/

Church’s Website: https://www.stpauloc.org/about/chapel

Modern Martyrs

We correct a claim about martyrdom by telling the story of the 21 Coptic workers executed in Libya, a witness captured on video that terrorists meant as propaganda.

We follow how their calm, their prayer, and their families’ response reshape what we mean by freedom, courage, and unity across centuries of division.

• visiting a Coptic Orthodox church and noticing the icon of “the 21”
• the workers’ background in Alwur and why they went to Libya for labor
• how ISIS separated Christians using IDs and cross tattoos
• captivity details and the repeated offer to recite the shahada
• Matthew Ayariga’s choice to die with the others
• the execution video as propaganda that accidentally becomes testimony
• families speaking with pride and refusing revenge
• canonization, recovered bodies, and the shrine church in their village
• Pope Francis, Pope Tawadros II, and the “ecumenism of blood”
• a parallel with Alexei Navalny and interior freedom under coercion

A single sentence could have saved their lives, and they had six weeks to say it. Instead, 21 men knelt on a Mediterranean beach in orange jumpsuits, lips moving in prayer, while their executioners filmed a spectacle meant to terrify the world. We started with a correction and ended with one of the most unsettling stories of modern Christian martyrdom: the 21 Coptic Orthodox martyrs of Libya, ordinary Egyptian construction workers whose witness exists not only in ancient texts but in high-definition footage.

We walk through how they were identified and taken in Sirte, Libya, how pressure was applied with the “door open,” and why the offer to recite the shahada matters so much when you’re thinking about faith, coercion, and what freedom really is. Then we linger on the 21st man, Matthew Ayariga of Ghana, who was given a unique chance to step away and reportedly answered, “Their God is my God,” choosing to die alongside men who had become his people.

The story doesn’t end at the beach. It keeps going through the families who speak without revenge, the Coptic Church’s swift canonization, and a historic moment when Pope Francis adds these martyrs to the Roman Martyrology, calling it the “ecumenism of blood.” We also draw a modern parallel to Alexei Navalny and the strange power of interior freedom, the kind no prison, knife, or regime can finally touch.

If this moved you, share it with a friend who’s wrestling with courage, faith, or integrity, and please subscribe and leave a review so more people can find the show. What do you think real freedom costs?

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Contact: subversiveorthodoxy@gmail.com

Instagram: @subversiveorthodoxy

Host: Travis Mullen Instagram: @manartnation

Co-Host: Robert L. Inchausti, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of English at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and is the author of numerous books, including Subversive Orthodoxy, Thomas Merton's American Prophecy, The Spitwad Sutras, and Breaking the Cultural Trance. He is, among other things, a Thomas Merton authority, and editor of the Merton books Echoing Silence, Seeds, and The Pocket Thomas Merton. He's a lover of the literature of those who challenge the status quo in various ways, thus, he has had a lifelong fascination with the Beats.

Book by Robert L. Inchausti "Subversive Orthodoxy: Outlaws, Revolutionaries, and Other Christians in Disguise" Published 2005, authorization by the author.

Intro & Outro Music by Noah Johnson & Chavez the Fisherman, all rights reserved.

Freedom is one of those words everyone loves until you ask what it costs and what it’s for. We’re chasing a kind of freedom that doesn’t look like victory in a movie: a freedom that does not fight back, cannot be threatened into compliance, and refuses to let evil pass through the self.

We start with Jesus’ sharp exchange in John 8, where “the truth will set you free” collides with people who are sure they don’t need freeing. From there we move freedom inward, toward the soul and the “unlosable” center an empire can’t reach. Solzhenitsyn’s prison logic makes it plain: power works by leverage, by threatening to take something away, and it panics when it meets a person who can’t be bought or frightened.

Then we look at the martyrs and why their stories keep unsettling the normal scoreboard. Ignatius writes with joy on the road to execution. Perpetua records calm in a Carthage prison cell. We also sit with the haunting image of Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc, whose stillness in flames raises a question most of us avoid: what kind of interior life could make that possible?

From there we connect the dots to Martin Luther King Jr and the claim beneath nonviolence: absorbing violence without retaliation reveals a deeper freedom than the one swinging the club. Finally, we bring it into the present, where most of us face not an emperor but Kierkegaard’s crowd, carried around in our pockets through social media, AI, headlines, envy, and status.

If this reframes freedom for you, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review with the line that challenged you most.

We follow a line from John 8 to the martyrs and modern public life, arguing that the deepest freedom is interior and cannot be seized by empires, systems, or the crowd. We wrestle with why non-retaliation and surrendering outcomes to God can expose the limits of power and reframe what “winning” even means.

• Jesus’ freedom claim in John 8 and why confident people miss it
• Slavery to sin as an internal captivity beneath status and citizenship
• Adoption and belonging as an unrevokable foundation for freedom
• Solzhenitsyn’s insight that power depends on leverage and fear
• Martyr stories that invert the usual picture of defeat and victory
• Thich Quang Duc and the question of stillness under suffering
• Ignatius and Perpetua as witnesses to fearlessness before execution
• Martin Luther King Jr’s nonviolence as a claim about real power
• Kierkegaard’s warning about the crowd and the comfort of compliance
• Chesterton, Berdyaev, and the role of limits, habits, and inner life
• Social media and modern pressure to consume, conform, and perform

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Contact: subversiveorthodoxy@gmail.com

Instagram: @subversiveorthodoxy

Host: Travis Mullen Instagram: @manartnation

Co-Host: Robert L. Inchausti, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of English at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and is the author of numerous books, including Subversive Orthodoxy, Thomas Merton's American Prophecy, The Spitwad Sutras, and Breaking the Cultural Trance. He is, among other things, a Thomas Merton authority, and editor of the Merton books Echoing Silence, Seeds, and The Pocket Thomas Merton. He's a lover of the literature of those who challenge the status quo in various ways, thus, he has had a lifelong fascination with the Beats.

Book by Robert L. Inchausti "Subversive Orthodoxy: Outlaws, Revolutionaries, and Other Christians in Disguise" Published 2005, authorization by the author.

Intro & Outro Music by Noah Johnson & Chavez the Fisherman, all rights reserved.

We go back to Eden and trace a biblical definition of freedom that looks like shalom: wholeness, harmony, and life in proper order with God, others, and creation. We connect that storyline to Exodus, Sabbath, Jesus’ confrontation with the powers, and Luther’s claim that grace frees us from fear-based self-justification.

• Eden as a picture of freedom grounded in shalom, ordered goodness, and meaningful work
• The fall as a turn toward autonomy that makes fear the organizing force
• Exodus as liberation that includes covenant, law, worship, communal responsibility, and rest
• Sabbath as resistance to Pharaoh’s production logic and modern productivity culture
• Modern “pharaohs” selling endless output as virtue and calling it freedom
• Jesus, the cross, and resurrection as exposure and defeat of powers and authorities
• Inner freedom as release from fear that drives preemptive compliance
• Luther on freedom before God and love-motivated service in the world
• Freedom operating inside the soul, between people, and across systems

Freedom is a word we throw around like it’s obvious, but our defaults are often thin: more options, fewer limits, higher status, better control. We wanted to test that instinct by going back to the Bible’s deep storyline and asking what freedom looks like before empires, before modern ideologies, and before hustle culture told us who we’re allowed to be.

We start in the garden, where freedom feels like shalom: harmony, wholeness, and life unfolding in a world that’s “very good.” Work is participation in meaning, not a frantic attempt to prove worth. Then Genesis 3 reframes the problem as a grasp for autonomy that displaces God and lets fear become the new operating system. That fear doesn’t stay personal, it grows into patterns and systems that enslave, which is why the story keeps moving toward Exodus. There, freedom comes with formation: covenant, law, worship, shared responsibility, and the scandal of Sabbath rest.

From there we name today’s “pharaohs” and their brick quotas: the productivity gospel that treats exhaustion like holiness. Finally, we widen the lens to Jesus and the New Testament language of powers and authorities, and we bring in Luther’s insight that grace frees us from self-justification so love can drive our actions. If you’ve ever wondered why rest feels impossible or why fear keeps making your choices, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review with your definition: what would real freedom look like in your life?

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Contact: subversiveorthodoxy@gmail.com

Instagram: @subversiveorthodoxy

Host: Travis Mullen Instagram: @manartnation

Co-Host: Robert L. Inchausti, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of English at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and is the author of numerous books, including Subversive Orthodoxy, Thomas Merton's American Prophecy, The Spitwad Sutras, and Breaking the Cultural Trance. He is, among other things, a Thomas Merton authority, and editor of the Merton books Echoing Silence, Seeds, and The Pocket Thomas Merton. He's a lover of the literature of those who challenge the status quo in various ways, thus, he has had a lifelong fascination with the Beats.

Book by Robert L. Inchausti "Subversive Orthodoxy: Outlaws, Revolutionaries, and Other Christians in Disguise" Published 2005, authorization by the author.

Intro & Outro Music by Noah Johnson & Chavez the Fisherman, all rights reserved.