News
How the gladiators inspired evangelicals’ sense of persecution
Cavan W. Concannon, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
With the release of Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator II,” audiences will be plunged back into the cinematic excitement of the Roman amphitheater so vividly captured in its predecessor, “Gladiator.”
Scott’s film will undoubtedly capture the thrills of this spectacle. But as someone who studies the Roman world, I think it’s worth remembering that its cultural legacy goes beyond the cinematic pleasures of the big screen.
You might be surprised to learn that there are threads that tie together gladiators, Christian martyrs and the sense of persecution that exists among many U.S. evangelicals today.
Fan clubs and heartthrobs
Gladiatorial fights likely began as part of the funeral rites of wealthy Roman families. Over time, the fights became mass public events, regulated by the state and elites.
They included three sets of events: wild beast fights, the executions of criminals, and gladiatorial fights. The gladiators were the main event, with their forthcoming battles hyped on the walls of Roman cities. These advertisements often mentioned the names of the famous fighters, the number of gladiators fighting, and whether there would be fights to the death. Not all gladiators fought to the death: The gladiator Hilarus, for example, won 12 times but fought in 14 fights.
Gladiators were, by law, required to be slaves.
Their enslavers invested time and money in their training and upkeep. Roman games were put on at the expense of local elites, or even the emperor. Well-trained gladiators meant better shows for the sponsors and bigger profits for their owners. A gladiator who died in his first fight was not good for business. Meanwhile, a successful gladiator – meaning one who had made his enslaver a lot of money – could hope to be freed or be given an opportunity to buy his freedom.
Those who won could also expect to become beloved celebrities, which somewhat offset the dishonor of being enslaved. In Pompeii, multiple inscriptions mention the Thracian gladiator Celadus, calling him a heartthrob. Gladiatorial fan clubs were common. One group was likely responsible for a riot that broke out during a set of games in Pompeii in 59 C.E. There’s even evidence of gladiatorial cosplay. One Roman senator was said to have fought duels with a woman in a leopard costume at Ostia.
Meanwhile, the tombstones of gladiators in Roman-controlled Greece celebrated their prowess using language drawn from ancient athletics, which were sports that were only available to freeborn citizens. These gladiators gave themselves stage names evoking mythological heroes or their courage and bravery.
These stage names were not just for entertainment; they were attempts to immortalize their respectability. By casting themselves as athletes and not enslaved fighters, they presented themselves as participants in a noble, athletic tradition.
Christians embrace ancient athletics
Early Christians used descriptions of sports and athletics because they could be easily understood by Roman society.
Ancient athletic competitions shaped how people thought about beauty, the body, self-control, education and competition. For victorious gladiators, the outcast and the slave could paradoxically embody the ideals of Roman virtue.
In the Christian New Testament, the apostle Paul famously describes himself as a runner and a boxer and even as a gladiator. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews speaks of running a race before a heavenly crowd of witnesses.
By embracing this imagery, early Christians positioned themselves as outsiders who nonetheless championed Roman ideals and culture.
Gladiator as martyr
Some early Christians followed Paul’s example and wrote themselves into the culture of ancient sports, particularly in a genre of Christian writing focused on martyrdom.
It is commonly thought that the earliest Christians were regularly and systematically persecuted by the Roman government. But the widespread persecution of ancient Christians under the Roman Empire is a myth that modern historians have debunked. Local persecutions did happen from time to time: There were a few short periods where the imperial government targeted Christians. However, for the most part, the Romans paid little attention to Christians.
So why were Christians so focused on telling stories of martyrs?
Ancient Christians wrote violent stories about martyrs because they functioned as morality plays that taught virtue and vice.
One example is the account of the “Martyrs of Lyons and Vienne,” written sometime at the end of the second century C.E. In the story, those condemned to death in the arena are described as “noble athletes” and “noble competitors.” The author characterizes Christians – who are dying not as athletes or gladiators, but as common criminals – as those who possess the elite virtues of great athletes. The reversal of expectations gives the story its force.
You can see this in the character of Blandina, an enslaved woman who is described in the account as a noble athlete and as one who has put on Christ, the “mighty and powerful athlete.” The author instructs the audience to see her as a hero, not as a slave or a criminal: through her, “Christ showed that the things that appear worthless, obscure, and despicable among men are considered worthy of great glory with God.”
In another martyr narrative, a woman named Perpetua has a dream in which she transforms into a gladiator before her martyrdom. These early Christian martyr accounts envision games in which enslaved people display noble courage and virtue; those condemned to torture, beatings and violent deaths are unfazed. Instead, they’re self-possessed athletes who strive for imperishable crowns.
Forever persecuted
The draw of stories in which Christians are “thrown to the lions” has remained powerful. Most ancient martyr accounts were written after Christianity became legal in the Roman Empire. But Christians continued to write stories about martyrs even after they became the majority of the population.
In the U.S. today, evangelical, charismatic and conservative Christians continue to tap into the martyrdom mythology. Even as they’ve become a powerful force in national politics, many influential wings of conservative U.S. Christians have come to characterize themselves as a persecuted minority. And they keep writing martyr stories.
High school football coach Joe Kennedy became an evangelical hero for fighting for the right to pray on the field at public high school football games. Kennedy had been fired for leading postgame prayers on the field, in violation of school policy. His supporters viewed him as a champion of religious freedom who was being unfairly persecuted for his beliefs. Kennedy ultimately fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in his favor.
Other conservative Christians have also returned to the arena. This time, they’re the gladiatorial fighters and not the murdered martyrs.
The popular internet meme of Marine Todd taps into this particular fantasy: The fictional Marine gets so fed up with his atheist university professor that he punches him in front of the class. Meanwhile, the gallows and crosses that accompanied the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol juxtaposed fantasies of violence with Christian fears of persecution. While less ominous, the recent film “The Carpenter” puts Jesus ringside, telling the story of how Jesus takes on an apprentice and teaches him how to fight, MMA-style, in ancient Nazareth.
In depictions like these, Christians are no longer dying in the arena. It’s where they fight back.
Cavan W. Concannon, Professor of Religion and Classics, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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News
How healthy is Sodastream?
The SodaStream Sparkling Water Maker is a device that forces carbon dioxide (CO2) gas (stored under pressure in a cylinder) into water, making it sparkling (fizzy)
Sodastream machines have been gaining popularity in recent years as an alternative to store-bought soft drinks. Not only are they more environmentally friendly, but they also offer several health benefits compared to traditional sodas.
Reduced Sugar Intake
One of the most significant health benefits of using a Sodastream machine is reducing sugar intake. Traditional sodas are loaded with sugar, and excessive sugar intake can lead to weight gain, obesity, and other health problems such as Type 2 diabetes. With a Sodastream machine, you can control the amount of sugar you add to your drink, allowing you to enjoy a refreshing beverage without the harmful effects of excessive sugar consumption.
No Artificial Sweeteners
Many store-bought soft drinks contain artificial sweeteners, which can have negative health effects such as headaches and digestive problems. Sodastream machines, on the other hand, allow you to use natural sweeteners such as fruit extracts, honey or agave nectar, giving you a healthier and more natural alternative.
No Preservatives
Another advantage of using a Sodastream machine is that you can avoid preservatives commonly found in store-bought soft drinks. Preservatives such as sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate have been linked to health problems such as cancer and allergies. By making your own drinks, you can avoid these harmful additives and enjoy a healthier, preservative-free beverage.
Eco-Friendly
In addition to the health benefits, using a Sodastream machine is also environmentally friendly. Traditional soft drinks are packaged in plastic bottles or cans, which contribute to environmental pollution. With a Sodastream machine, you can reuse the same bottle multiple times, reducing waste and helping to reduce your carbon footprint.
Variety
Finally, Sodastream machines offer a wide variety of flavors and options, allowing you to customize your drink to your liking. You can mix and match different flavors or create your own unique blends, giving you a healthier and more enjoyable alternative to traditional sodas.
In conclusion, Sodastream machines offer several health benefits compared to traditional store-bought soft drinks. By reducing sugar intake, avoiding artificial sweeteners and preservatives, and being eco-friendly, they offer a healthier and more sustainable alternative to traditional soft drinks. Moreover, with a wide variety of flavors and options, you can customize your drink to your liking, making it a fun and enjoyable way to stay healthy.
Consumer Corner
Behind the Product: What Sustainability Looks Like in Beauty Development
Beauty Development: Shoppers want to know what ingredients are used, how items are packaged and whether the production process includes thoughtful choices. Beauty brands are taking note, and sustainability is increasingly shaping decisions across sourcing, packaging, production, shipping, storage and replenishment.
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(Feature Impact) Shoppers are paying closer attention to the products they bring into their homes. They want to know what ingredients are used, how items are packaged and whether the production process includes thoughtful choices. Beauty brands are taking note, and sustainability is increasingly shaping decisions across sourcing, packaging, production, shipping, storage and replenishment.
Responsible product lines rarely come from sweeping change. They are built through smaller, connected choices made throughout development. Packaging, ingredient sourcing and production planning influence how a product performs, how much waste it creates and how sustainably products can be produced.
Consider this beauty sustainability information from Laura Badcock, Chief Operating Officer of NourishUs Naturals.
Why packaging matters beyond appearance
“Packaging is often the first thing shoppers notice,” Badcock said. “It can shape how someone feels about a product before they ever try what’s inside.”
A package should look appealing, though appearance is only part of the equation. It also needs to protect the product, travel safely, store well and hold up through regular use. Once the product is finished, the packaging should allow easy recycling, refilling or responsible disposal.
There is no single packaging option that works best for every beauty product. A lightweight container may reduce shipping weight. A refillable option may stay in use longer. A recyclable material may work well in one area but create challenges in another if local recycling systems cannot process it. Even packaging that appears sustainable can create problems in practice if it leaks, breaks or requires excess shipping materials.
Why ingredient sourcing matters
“Ingredient lists have become an important part of how people evaluate beauty products,” Badcock said. “Shoppers often look for familiar oils, butters, botanical extracts and information about how ingredients were sourced, which plays a major role in the environmental impact.”
A product’s environmental footprint is influenced by many factors, including shipping distance, processing methods, storage conditions and supplier practices.
These factors can also affect product consistency and ingredient availability over time. Beauty brands working with wholesale skin care suppliers or private label manufacturers often need to balance ingredient goals with sourcing reliability and production needs.
How better planning can lead to less waste
“Packaging and ingredients are usually the first things people associate with sustainability, but how much product gets made, stored and discarded matters, too,” Badcock said.
Overproduction is one of the biggest hidden sources of waste in beauty and personal care. Products that sit too long in storage may eventually expire or remain unsold. Excess inventory can also create additional packaging waste, warehousing needs and disposal costs.
Smaller batch sizes give producers more room to adjust as trends or demand shift, and producing closer to expected sales windows helps reduce long storage periods and unnecessary waste. Testing new products in smaller volumes and restocking based on actual demand makes overproduction less likely.
How sustainable beauty choices are connected
Packaging, ingredient sourcing and production planning are closely connected throughout development.
“A packaging choice can affect shipping weight, storage needs and whether a package can be refilled,” Badcock said. “Ingredient choices can influence sourcing timelines and how products need to be stored. Production planning affects how much material gets used and how much product could eventually go unsold.”
Beauty shoppers want more transparency around sustainability claims
Sustainability claims carry less weight when those claims aren’t explained in practice.
This shift is pushing many beauty brands to focus more heavily on traceability, supplier relationships and clearer product information. Transparency is becoming part of the customer experience itself.
More responsible product lines are built over time
Responsible beauty products come together through ongoing choices around packaging, sourcing, production and inventory planning. For shoppers, those choices influence the products they bring into their homes.
“The brands that build sustainability into early decisions tend to have the easiest time maintaining it later,” Badcock said. “Once supplier relationships, packaging formats and production routines are in place, small adjustments are far easier than major changes. Treating sustainability as part of product development from the beginning, rather than something to fix later, is what makes it work in practice.”
To find more information on the intersection of beauty and sustainability, visitNourishUsNaturals.com.
Photo courtesy of Shutterstock
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Automotive
EPA removal of vehicle emissions limits won’t stop the shift to electric vehicles, but will make it harder, slower and more expensive
The EPA’s move to rescind the 2009 “endangerment finding” and roll back vehicle emissions limits won’t stop the shift to electric vehicles—but it will slow adoption, raise costs, and increase climate and public health harms.
Alan Jenn, University of California, Davis
The U.S. government is in full retreat from its efforts to make vehicles more fuel-efficient, which it had been prioritizing, along with state governments, since the 1970s.
The latest move came on Feb. 12, 2026, when President Donald Trump and the Environmental Protection Agency issued a new rule rescinding the landmark “endangerment finding,” and reversing various emissions limits on cars and trucks. The 2009 finding stated that greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare. If the new rule stands up in court and is not overruled by Congress, it would undo a key part of the long-standing effort to limit greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles.
As a scholar of how vehicle emissions contribute to climate change, I know that the science behind the endangerment finding hasn’t changed. If anything, the evidence has grown that greenhouse gas emissions are warming the planet and threatening people’s health and safety. Heat waves, flooding, sea-level rise and wildfires have only worsened in the decade and a half since the EPA’s ruling.
Regulations over the years have cut emissions from power generation, leaving transportation as the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.
The scientific community agrees that vehicle emissions are harmful and should be regulated. The public also agrees, and has indicated strong preferences for cars that pollute less, including both more efficient gas-burning vehicles and electric-powered ones. Consumers have also been drawn to electric vehicles thanks to other benefits such as performance, operation cost and innovative technologies.
That is why I believe the EPA’s move will not stop the public and commercial transition to electric vehicles, but it will make that shift harder, slower and more expensive for everyone.
Putting carmakers in a bind
The most recent EPA rule about vehicle emissions was finalized in 2024. It set emissions limits that can realistically only be met by a large-scale shift to electric vehicles.
Over the past decade and a half, automakers have been building up their capability to produce electric vehicles to meet these fleet requirements, and a combination of regulations such as California’s zero-emission-vehicle requirements have worked together to ensure customers can get their hands on EVs. The zero-emission-vehicle rules require automakers to produce EVs for the California market, which in turn make it easier for the companies to meet their efficiency and emissions targets from the federal government. These collectively pressure automakers to provide a steady supply of electric vehicles to consumers.
The new EPA move would undo the 2024 EPA vehicle-emissions rule and other federal regulations that also limit emissions from vehicles, such as the heavy-duty vehicle emissions rule.
The possibility of a regulatory reversal puts automakers into a state of uncertainty. Legal challenges to the EPA’s shift are all but guaranteed, and the court process could take years.
For companies making decade-long investment decisions, regulatory stability matters more than short-term politics. Disrupting that stability undermines business planning, erodes investor confidence and sends conflicting signals to consumers and suppliers alike.
A slower roll
The Trump administration has taken other steps to make electric vehicles less attractive to carmakers and consumers.
The White House has already suspended key provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act that provided tax credits for purchasing EVs and halted a US$5 billion investment in a nationwide network of charging stations. And Congress has retracted the federal waiver that allowed California to set its own, stricter emissions limits. In combination, these policies make it hard to buy and drive electric vehicles: Fewer, or no, financial incentives for consumers make the purchases more expensive, and fewer charging stations make travel planning more challenging.
Overturning the EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding would remove the legal basis for regulating climate pollution from vehicles altogether.
But U.S. consumer interest in electric vehicles has been growing, and automakers have already made massive investments to produce electric vehicles and their associated components in the U.S. – such as Hyundai’s EV factory in Georgia and Volkswagen’s Battery Engineering Lab in Tennessee.
Global markets, especially in Europe and China, are also moving decisively toward electrifying large proportions of the vehicles on the road. This move is helped in no small part due to aggressive regulation by their respective governments. The results speak for themselves: Sales of EVs in both the European Union and China have been growing rapidly.
But the pace of change matters. A slower rollout of clean vehicles means more cumulative emissions, more climate damage and more harm to public health.
The EPA’s move seeks to slow the shift to electric vehicles, removing incentives and raising costs – even though the market has shown that cleaner vehicles are viable, the public has shown interest, and the science has never been clearer. But even such a major policy change can’t stop the momentum of those trends.
This is an updated version of an article originally published Aug. 5, 2025.
Alan Jenn, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Davis
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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