This question, which I addressed in an earlier, recent blog post, is a tough one: A key issue for people of faith is not so much what will you do if violence is directed at you, but what will you do if violence is directed at others? And, I would add, especially if the violence is directed at those whom you love (who perhaps should be all neighbors, far and wide–though strangers are harder to conjure in our minds than friends and family).

A second-century woman named Felicitas had to face this very issue. In a tremendously blood persecution of Christians, this widow with seven sons was dragged before Roman Emperor Antoninus and told to renounce her Christianity because it was, apparently, drawing business away from the religious leaders of other, more established faith communities. She refused. He cajoled and he threatened, playing both good cop and bad cop with her. Felicitas still refused to alter her path. Then Antoninus changed tactics. In effect, he said to her, “Sure, you’re a widow and your husband is dead–you might not have much to live for. But–what about this? What if I decide to kill your sons if you don’t abandon this Christian practice of yours? Yes, I can tell that you would be willing to die–but are you willing to have their blood on your hands?”

Felicitas refused to cooperate with this particular brand of evil. She recognized that a killer (by whatever title) cannot shift moral responsibility or culpability to another for what he (or she) threatens to do to others. Publius, one of Antoninus’s prefects, engaged in this interchange with Felicitas when the day for the execution(s) was at hand:

“Take pity on your children, Felicitas; they are in the bloom of youth, and may aspire to the greatest honours and preferments.” The holy mother answered, “Your pity is really impiety, and the compassion to which you exhort me would make me the most cruel of mothers.”

Whether or not Felicitas was headstrong (good for her if so!), she saw very clearly the lies thrown her direction by Publius. It would not have been merciful to her children for her to live dishonestly under the coercion of murderous oppression. Moreover, it was not her moral duty to control the immoral actions of the Emperor or his minions–all she could–and needed to–do was to be true to herself and thereby set such an example for her children.

This is still bigger than I can wrap my own mind around. But I know this: Mahatma Gandhi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., both understood the utter necessity of refusing to cooperate with evil. And, yes: both were assassinated. And even MORE YES: both changed the face of this world. The refusal, even at the cost of ourselves and those we love most, is the price we must be willing to pay in order to halt the progress of evil and to make the “just community” possible. We have to name what Felicitas called “impiety” (sin, evil) for what it is, and we must refuse to think of “a lesser degree of evil” as any form of compassion whatsoever! (Oh, you’ll agree only to blacken one eye, but no broken bones? Thank you, thank you! Oh, you’ll put these children who are separated from our border in nice cages? That’s certainly a reasonable precaution to protect our nation [which is not under threat from these caged children]. Thank you! Oh, you might allow some form of pre-existing conditions to be covered in some kind of health insurance plan [while allowing others to die needlessly, all in the name of inordinate profits for the fewer still]? How generous!” No. No. And No.

Felicitas understood. Yes, she and her seven sons were killed (each of them choosing individually to stay true to their faith, just as did their mother). Yet what ended up happening is that others in that time and in that place drew strength from their example, and found their own moral voices in the face of senseless oppression. And their story is told, even down to this day.

It begins somewhere. There is often a cost. And it is worth paying if ever anything is.