Warning, this video is not for the faint of heart....

(HT: The Daily Dish)

Today there are countless Iranians protesting, and some dying for the right to have their voice counted in free and fair elections.  I am not of any illusionary belief that democracy is a God ordained institution, however it is by far the best thing humans have ever come up with for self-governance and it sure beats the theocratic fascism that Iran's conservative Muslim leaders are now fully revealed to be in favor of.

I have friends that have served bravely in the military and they are willing to die for their country and fellow citizens; even to die for another country and her citizens.  The earliest Christians and the underground church today are persecuted and martyred for their faith.  But is it really worth dying for?

The question of death and life and viewing some measure of worth as being associated with it is an interesting phenomena.  Is your earthly existence less valuable than your right to vote?  Is your hand being intact worth some tangible amount which once is met you agree to have it lobbed off?  Is there anyway a well fed white mid-westerner whose most dangerous experience was a brush with a 5th grader on the tetherball court after recess can identify with and say that they would indeed die for anything?

The things worth dying for are often identified as existing 'outside' of ourselves, they are bigger than our own footprint.  Will we die to save the life of another?  Will we throw ourselves on the grenade tossed before our friends?  Will we stand in front of the tanks and bullets thrown at us by extremist governments with terroristic visions of domination?

Do we have a faith in a God that sent a son that had something valuable to do, something worth being killed for?  Is the hope of reconciliation of God and his creation worth dying for?  I ask these questions because I don't think most Christians serve that God.  They have faith in the God of the Sunday morning concert, the God of the felt needs, the God of the 'feed me' consumption of targeted Christonomic Americanism.  That is surely not something worth dying for, because there is nothing 'outside' of ourselves to die for.  That is a Christian faith that is personalized, and internalized.  It is filtered, packaged, and made 'just for you' so that you can feel as though you are somehow being Christian by listening to it, reading it, or watching it.  That is the ingrown and inbred faith of 'Christian Yellowbooks' and only letting your kids play with other Christian kids.  It is a faith that is stained with red, white, and blue.  It is a farce, a false religion, a heretic gospel, and I won't die for it.

So what will I die for?  I will die for a Christ that is fully God and fully man, that was really born of a virgin, that was really a historical person, that really died on a cross, and really raised from the dead and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty!  I will die for nothing less.  I will die for a faith that causes me to embrace a radical and trinitarian love that is eternally focused on the well-being of others at the expense of my flesh.  I will die for a faith that transcends consumerism.  I will die for a faith in which all I am and all I do is but worthless unless it is bathed in the shadow of the cross.  I will die for a faith with teeth, that stands up for it's beliefs in the face of syncretism and pluralistic pandering to a culture bent on diluting everything to a pale grey.  And in paradox I will only die for a faith that is so radical in it's love for the other that we will be accused of being drunkards and harlots, sinners and tax collectors.  In short I will die for nothing less than the Kingdom of God come to earth through the incarnated hands of Jesus Christ.

Do you have something worth dying for?  If you don't then what are you living for?