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"I expect and hope that I will not fail Christ in anything but that I will have the courage now, as always, to show the greatness of Christ in my life here on Earth, whether I live or die."

~Philippians 1:20

So what does this mean in your life right now? In this modern society? It's a verse I've found I like to look at, cause I mean, that's a huge cause, truly living the christian life whether you "live or die"...

Thoughts?

To me, the passage means living not only as as good a Christian as you can but as full a life as you can. To be a good person. I don't think it means "I will glorify god, even if I have to die".... but at any rate, I suppose killing yourself for god isn't as bad as killing others in the process. I don't know myself, of course, but I imagine Jesus wants you to live for him, not die for him. So to express the greatness of Christ in your life, live or die, so live as great a life as you can, as full a life, as joyous a life, enjoy all the gifts and share what you can. I think the basic idea is to show the greatness of Christ through living well.

I think the extremist thing comes in when ALL your attention is focused on Christ ALL the time. Now, some of your attention may be focused on Christ all of the time, and all of your attention some of the time, but there are other wonderful things in life that should be experienced fully. Love for others, time with family, music, nature, animals, school, sports, games. Life is, and should be, a patchwork of wonderful things. Perhaps imagine Christ as a thread that runs through every patch... but that doesn't overshadow the wonder of those patches in their own right.

I dunno. I'm working with unfamiliar analogies here. Is that sort of thing appropriate? Does it work with Christianity?

Anyway, my point is, if you're obsessed with god/church to the point that you neglect important aspects of your life (family, friends, school, work), then yeah, maybe you're an extremist. It suggests a certain obsessive mentality.

But generally extremists infringe on the rights of others. So if you're sticking up a giant cross in the middle of town, and other religions are allowed their emblems of faith (whether or not they actually bother putting them up), that's fine. If you're sticking up a giant cross in the middle of town and then throwing a giant stink if someone puts up an Ankh or a Buddhist Wheel or whatever, that's a bit uncool... maybe not really extremism. Extremism kinda lends one to think of burning crosses in people's yards or assaulting people at their place of worship or harming others or even the Westboro lot tormenting grieving families. (I'm beginning to suspect that lot of being real life trolls or something.)

But all that breaks Agape. So maybe an Extremist isn't a real Christian.

As for living or dying based on whether you profess your faith, it's actually a very difficult question. If a person held a gun to your head, would you say yes or no? I have no idea what I would say, though I suspect self-preservation would win out. Loyal to my gods I may be, and perhaps it would even win me a nice spot in Valhol, but I dunno, I'm pretty attached to that whole "living" thing wink Even though the martyrs of my own faith were men of great honour and strength... I do not have that much strength or courage, at least not now. I don't know what I would answer.

Of course, in that situation you never know for certain the answer the shooter wants to hear wink

As an aside: The Columbine story is actually a bit confused; I checked it out on Snopes a while ago. There were a bunch of people in the library, and one girl started praying - ya know, "oh god, oh god, please don't let me die". The shooter asked if she believed in god and she said yes, but she crawled away to safety when he was reloading. Some other people were shot, among them a girl to whom the story is actually attributed. Her mother wrote a book about it, despite the fact that the girl asked whether she believed in god was a different girl - who survived. That doesn't diminish the fact that the girl who survived did say she believed in god "out of respect for [herself] and respect for god" (her words, cite), or diminish the death of the girl who was shot.