Challenges and Opportunity of Church for Nation Building
: aküm longchari
NBCC Seminar on Peace and Reconciliation
Venue: Youth Hostel, Dimapur
Date: 24th – 27th March 2003

A note! Do justice, Love Mercy and walk humbly with your God

When Rev. Kari Longchar called one evening seeking my consent to present a paper on the Challenges and Opportunity of Church for Nation building, I agreed to accept this challenging privilege for a number of reasons. First, I was aware that as a layman I would be addressing a group of religious ministers without being bound by the hierarchies and positions of the institutionalized Church, second as a young man I would be engaging with a mixed group of fairly young and elderly people and finally because I saw it as an opportunity for me to convey and dialogue through these reflections the feelings and aspirations of my generation. Therefore towards preparing this paper I wrote to a number of young Nagas involved in various facets of life: the study of theology, activism, scholars and professionals to share their views and thoughts on this very important question of the Church. Indeed, many of their responses have been woven into this paper and I have embraced some of these critical voices of hope in the latter half. Hence, these aspects brought me here because any attempt to bridge the generational gap and understanding of our realities is fundamental in the re-examination of any situation that engages and defines the course of a peoples struggle to realize its envisioned destiny.

As far as my personal view is concerned the people are the Church and the Church is in the people. However in the context of the given topic and for purposes of this presentation, the Church here refers to the institutions of the organized religion and Nation building in the context of the historical experiences, reflects expressions and aspirations of the Nagas in the making of a free, democratic just Naga society free from all domination, subjugation and exploitation.

Through these reflections I share a conceptual outline to initiate a dialogue around this pertinent and critical question.

Change – the unspoken need?

I believe to move forward, we must first begin to understand where we came from and where we are today! In order to do so, we must reclaim our heritage, reclaim our stories, erase the myths that have distorted our identity and begin addressing our history in a way that embraces the richness of our cultures and one that will liberate us from the parochial systems that continues to suffocate us.

In essence one does not need to try and establish the truth of the claim that the Naga nation has to struggle for its survival. It presents itself in so many facets of our lives and has had to endure severe blows and has been battered nearly out of shape. The Nagas has been oppressed through institutionalized machinery, militarization, through laws that create a certain state of alienation and yet in essence we still find the fundamental aspects and values of our existence in the importance we attach to our collective identity and our land which is at the center of all activities and our belief in the deliberate act of God to make us a peoples jointly involved and engaged in search for answers to the varied problems of life.

However, the Naga history has been dehumanized and distorted to such an extent that it is no wonder that often a Naga child learns to dislike his or her own heritage in his or her school days and so negative is the image presented that the child finds solace only in closely identifying with the oppressive society. The yoke of oppression forces one to always live in the shadows of a more successful society with negativity that is channeled towards alluring and alien destinations. The divide and rule is now achieved also by economic and material improvement of a selected few and the continuing impoverishment of the majority. It is therefore not surprising that it is indeed now very expensive to be poor in Naga society?

It is a fact that the colonial policies have through a subtle interplay of assimilation and divide and rule stripped away our dignity and liberty. In the course of time statecraft too with great sophistication has been able to refine lies to an extent that we are now made to believe it is the truth. In other words, the refined lies have now acquired some form of truth. Therefore how do we peel away the lies that continue to suppress the truth? How do we distinguish the perceived truth and the real truth, when the lies have now become the perceived truth? These are difficult questions that will challenge the core of our being and in the process create rifts and differences within peoples; but a journey that nevertheless needs to be taken in the process of nation building and in the search for a justpeace for we must believe that there is a way of getting across to where we want to go through peaceful means.

Where do we go from here? Our thoughts, behavior and institutions are made to fit into a pattern largely and often wholly determined by external forces. Hence our originality and our various forms of thoughts have been dulled to the point where it takes extreme effort to act with reason even in order to follow one’s own beliefs and convictions. The imposition of alien systems has limited creativity and damaged the ability to act with will. The feelings of powerlessness as Biko would say breeds a race of beggars who smile at the enemy and swears at him in the sanctity of their toilets.

We Nagas too must ask ourselves whether we are serious about making change. Are we prepared to free ourselves from the chains of bondage that have made us stop thinking? Are we willing to prove to ourselves and all others that we love our land and our rights more than the money, the wealth and the institutions that are showered upon us by those who continue to keep us in chains?

And so how do we address all these important questions that define our existence? To take part in the Naga struggle for dignity one must become a living part of the struggle and be an element in that popular yearning which is entirely calling forth for the freeing, the progress and the happiness of the Nagas. Decolonization of the mind is imperative for a successful political decolonization and cultural reconstruction and hence the liberation of our thought from its colonized condition requires us to rediscover our consciousness and to locate our humanity in the context of our struggle for dignity. In other words the process of nation building is calling upon all of us to take into account our true history and our past and also be willing to accept that there indeed is a future by aiding and empowering each other in our coming into consciousness and to be participants in the making of that history.

The institution of Naga Churches as seen by a young layperson

Christianity as we are reminded time and time again been made the central point of a new order which brought with it new styles of clothing, new customs, new forms of etiquette, new medical approaches and perhaps new armaments. The Nagas amongst whom Christianity was spread had to cast away their indigenous clothing, their customs, their values and their beliefs which were all described as being pagan and barbaric. The people were denied the space and thought processes to make imperative adjustments of their worldviews, indigenous knowledge systems and spirituality with their new found religion. Stripped from the core of their being and removed from their culture – and hence their humanity, the acceptance of a colonialist-tainted version of Christianity marked a turning point in the Naga peoples resistance.

Therefore, the Church and its operation in modern-day Naga society has to be looked at first in terms of the way it was introduced to the Naga people. As Biko would say, ‘… if Christianity in its introduction was corrupted by the inclusions of aspects which made it the ideal religion for the colonization of people, then, nowadays in it’s interpretation it is the ideal religion for the maintenance of the subjugation of the same people.’ Therefore, the historical existence of the church that was introduced in the process of colonization prevents it from being relevant to the context and situation of the people and creates a dependency relation wherein the church as a result cannot exist without the State powers; thereby removing from its center – the people.

Without doubt a paradigm shift is required! Christianity can no longer remain abstract and removed from people’s realities. In order to be applicable to the people it must have meaning for them in their given situation. If a people are an oppressed people, then the Church must have something to say about their oppression. Hence, a truthful assessment and recognition of these historical relations and experiences is imperative to create space for the Church to begin a sustainable process that will make possible a shift away from its present position of neutrality and passivity and help rediscover the fact that it cannot exist independent of the people and empower it to reclaim its moral courage to assume its prophetic role in nation building as defined and determined by the will of the people.

It is true that a nation like ours without faith cannot move forward, but if our faith in our Creator is patterned by having to see Him through the eyes of people who were part of the colonizing process, then there obviously begins to be something wrong in that relationship.

Where does the Church Stand?

The Naga Church does not exist in a vacuum; its existence is located within a historical and social reality of a given context. I would therefore like to give meaning by locating its existence in the story of the Naga caravan. In this story, the Naga caravan is peacefully meandering towards its own destination under the stars of history. One night, a major interruption takes place. The Naga caravan is overcome and strangers from another caravan use force to suppress it. The strangers divert the Naga caravan from its original route, taking it into an alluring but alien destination. Under the inspiration of people seeking justice and peace, the original owners of the caravan seek to bring the Naga caravan under indigenous control. The strangers have brought it some considerable distance from what seemed to be its natural route. The question arises should the Naga caravan continue in its path of diversion? Should it seek to discover the precise point at which it was hijacked and diverted, and from there once again seek its destiny? Or is it possible to locate its bearing from this point without necessarily going to its original point of diversion? It is this difficult dilemma that most struggling people face in the process of nation-building.

We need to contextualize the truth to understand the caravan and the consequence of contextualizing the truth would mean to put the question of power in a historical context. The Naga Church is located within this subjugated Naga caravan and has inherited a tradition of struggle and a history that has been shaped by the forces of the caravan and its encounter with hegemonic alien systems that have molded personalities and influenced present day patterns of behavior. It is in the context of this struggle for dignity that the Church needs to take its stand!

In similar situation of crisis, the strongest charge against the Church emerges out of the conception that she has complied with the conditions of injustice, exploitation and coercion. Archbishop Tutu out of his experience goes to add ‘The great charge was that the church had no eye or ear for justice or for the oppressed. The church identified only with those on the sunny side of life … The church was on the side of the vested interests of ruling classes instead of rebuking or condemning their injustice. She admonished the poor and oppressed to be docile, to bear their hard burden patiently, to hope for better conditions in the hereafter, to suffer the ills of the present in order to receive the heaven of the future.’

Cone reminds us that “the ruling class promotes religion because it justifies the present material relation and also because it serves as a pacifier for the oppressed, making them remain content with their humiliation and suffering. As long as the oppressed believe that their future is found in a heavenly world, they will not focus on the needed revolutionary praxis to change this world.” Do we also not see a connection between the powers that be and the dominant theological ideas in our own context? Is it not time to take a critical decision to break out of religious self-alienation?

There is no doubt in my mind that the liberation of the Naga caravan represents a just cause and therefore it is important the Church provides a prophetic voice of reason to ensure that we do not destroy that cause by the kind of methods that we use.

In places where oppression is prevalent the question of armed struggle as a means to solve injustices arises, and therefore the Church has to be very clear that it has chosen active nonviolence as a means of liberation. However, often we hear Church leaders saying, ‘I am neutral; I am for nonviolence’ which is a contradiction in terms because neutrality is a vote for the status quo and the status quo itself is unjust and oppressive; while nonviolence is not neutrality, nonviolence is against injustice and for transformation.

O’Brien tells us “Evil is not to be located in the person but in the structure. Removing the person does not remove the evil. When we locate and identify evil in persons rather than in their actions, we prepare the way for crimes, but when we locate evil in structures a way is opened to bring about change that will also liberate the person from their own bondage, not eliminate them.” Too often we are quick to leap with condemnations on people committing violent acts, when we have remained silent about the injustices, inequalities and oppression. Therefore it becomes all the more important for the Church to engage with unjust systems that gives rise to future violence because at the core, nonviolent action is not directed against violence, but against the injustice that causes and gives rise to violence. Wink tells us that the acts of non-violence seeks out conflict, elicits conflicts and even initiates conflict in order to bring it out into the open so that the structures of injustice are exposed, engaged with and transformed.

We often define the power in terms of money power, gun power and their ability to create fear; but in reality these are only the tools to enforce their perceived power over the people. In reality their real power lies in their strategies, planning and actions that are well-planned in terms of what it can do to promote their own self-interest through manipulation and implemented by force through a violent system.

People do not simply happen to be poor and oppressed, their oppression and poverty is largely a product of how the way society has been organized and hence it is important that the Church critiques these structures that perpetuates and justifies violence, oppression and inequality. The Naga Churches should be in consistent pursuit of justice and rights so that it leads to the struggle to make basic changes in society possible.

A lot of people feel uneasy about what they call political movement, but is that involvement not inspired and guided to us by our Creator? As Archbishop Tutu remarked ‘If one says that religion cannot be concerned about politics, then we are really saying that there is a substantial part of human life in which God’s writ does not run. If it is not God’s then whose is it?’ He goes on to say that ‘the prophets are deeply involved in politics because politics is the sphere where God’s people demonstrate their obedience or their disobedience.’ Indeed the whole of life is important and as I understand it no aspects of human life is untouched by God’s mission and hence it is imperative that the Church restore the wholeness of life: the political, the economic and the social.

The vision of justice though often neglected and betrayed is nevertheless so central to the teaching of the Church; and central to Christianity and justice is right relationship that embraces grace and compassion. But it is in our fear to act against these injustices that not only increases the suffering but also prolongs it. Our ability to act is directly limited by our fear of losing even some 'minor privileges and benefits' – not realizing we have already lost our dignity and humanity. The structures of fear are global – however the transformation towards justice through 'non-violent struggle' lies with those who can cast off their fear, even the little fears of losing a few cherished benefits in society and even the fear that not enough people will join them. The chains of fear can be broken off when we stop using religion as a form of escapism from the harsh realities of life as lived and experienced by the people and when we begin working together to confront the roots of injustice, violence and inhumanity.

Our inability to recognize truth cannot liberate us from the untruth. Cone puts truth as an event that happens to us and often against our will which however does not destroy our consciousness; rather truth affirms consciousness in the struggle to be through an affirmation of its right to be. Hence, to encounter with truth and speak the truth is to relate and connect the stories and experiences of our parent’s struggles for dignity to our own present existential struggles for dignity so that it gives us the courage to act in spite of fear the need for a more humane future. Indeed truth must be unfolded and revealed through our lives, creating human action for liberation.

When the people are passive and afraid to struggle, the Church must remind the people that the gospel is identical with their struggle for liberation from political and economic bondage. The teaching of Jesus indicates that he does not want us to continue to comply in our oppression by the powers that be but neither to react violently either, rather he wants us to refuse to oppose it in its own terms and find a third way, a way that is neither submission or assault but a way that can secure our human dignity.

The Naga Church needs to take a clear theological stand, a truthful stand that leads to God’s humanity.

Compassion in the midst of Crisis

Archbishop Tutu remarks that a nation divided during a repressive regime does not emerge suddenly united when the time of repression is passed … neither can anyone have the power to say ‘Let bygones be bygones’ after all common experience indicates that the past, far from disappearing or being forgotten, is embarrassingly persistent and will return and haunt us unless it has been dealt with adequately. Archbishop Tutu goes on to add that unless we look the beast in the eye we will find that it returns to hold us hostage.

There is no doubt in my mind that in order to move forward into the future, we must first address the legacy of conflict and create space to acknowledge the deep fresh scars so that we can begin healing. And as Nancy Good Sider put it, in order to forget we must first remember. It is therefore imperative to address the legacy and scars of protracted conflict – and especially armed conflict in a meaningful and just manner. While recognizing that we have been objects of injustice, we cannot also ignore the fact that none of us are innocent. Who is innocent? In the course of protracted struggle we have come to assume both roles and in the process of regaining our humanity, it is possible that we lose our own humanity too. Hence, the questions of guilt and forgiveness must be defined in individual and collective terms. For genuine reconciliation in situations that have undergone protracted conflict, the process must have a sense of collective guilt, collective responsibility, collective acknowledgement and collective forgiveness. It is nevertheless important that the collective sense of victimization should not outweigh the individual hurts and suffering.

Recognizing that we too are capable of doing the same things that our opponents or oppressors have committed we must make the space for God to change the lives of people and the need for us to reconcile within our self. However, if people change just in order to gain forgiveness, then it becomes a weak and cheap process. Indeed forgiveness is not reasonable – it needs something more than reason to evoke it – it needs grace, grace that comes from our Creator.

Reconciliation and Reconstruction is therefore core to the existence of peace and stability in the process of nation building. For the sake of the future I believe that once we have effectively regained control of the Naga caravan a process must be initiated where wrongs and hurts committed by Naga people on Naga people in the name of the Naga people must be addressed in a meaningful and substantial way. This will symbolize a significant step of a long process to address political hurts within the Naga socio-political fiber so that we can begin a process of healing collectively as a people. Similarly, economic justice must be addressed and poverty be removed. Those who have wrongfully profited out of the conflict must be held accountable and the gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have not’ must be genuinely addressed in a manner that would facilitate the growth of an egalitarian society. The process of reconciliation should be rooted in the Naga struggle for self-determination and should emerge from the people with survivors’ justice as its standpoint so that it not only liberates the oppressed, but also the oppressors.

The Church must recognize the limitation of both victor’s justice and victims’ justice and advocate for a form of justice that makes reconciliation possible. Therefore, truth is essential in building trust and confidence and helps in restoring a basis for procedural restorative justice for which it becomes essential that the power of decision making be located within the society that is seeking reconciliation. A paradigm of restorative justice was characteristic of traditional Naga jurisprudence where the central concern was to heal the wounds, address the imbalances and restore the broken relations. This kind of justice seeks to rehabilitate without condemnation both the victim and the perpetrator and is sometimes referred to as survivors’ justice.

Brueggemann indicates that the compassion of Jesus is to be understood not simply as a personal emotional reaction but as a public criticism in which he dares to act upon his concern against the entire numbness of his social context. He continues to say that compassion constitutes a radical form of criticism, for it announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously, that the hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural but is an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness.

Reconciliation a revolutionary concept calling for human nature to defy the feelings of hate, prejudice and vengeance needs to be understood from the broader perspective of peace processes and in the context of the struggle to reclaim humanity and freedom in an oppressed situation. True reconciliation exposes the pains, the hurts, the wrongs, the degradation, the truth and hence it could even sometimes make things worse but in the end it is worthwhile because it leads to real healing from having dealt with the real situation and real issues in a real way. It needs to deal with the past, all of the past to make the future possible. Indeed reconciliation implies confronting and challenging the status quo for a more just and peaceful co-existence that is detrimental to the interests and positions of ‘the powers that be.’ Reconciliation therefore necessitates the transformation of unjust relationships to a more just one.

Cone puts it in an interesting way; he says that “because God has liberated the oppressed from bondage, thereby making freedom possible, the oppressed must now accept their freedom by joining God in the fight against injustice and oppression. Reconciliation then is not only what God does in order to deliver oppressed people from captivity, it is also what oppressed people do in order to remain faithful to their new gift of freedom – hence reconciliation is also freedom for God … There can be no reconciliation with God unless the hungry are fed, the sick are healed and justice is given to the poor.”

I do believe this prophetic process must begin from the house of faith! Question is does it have the courage to create a meeting place where truth and mercy embrace each other and justice and peace kiss? For out of this encounter emerges a child called reconciliation.

Towards a Naga Consciousness

At the core of nation building is the need to evolve a Naga collective consciousness and perhaps it is here that the Church must consciously and deliberately take the prophetic task to nurture, nourish and evoke a consciousness and perception that is perhaps an alternative to the dominant culture around us. This Naga consciousness is a call for self-realization and re-examination of ourselves, our value systems, our culture, our worldviews, our faith and our future as peoples and to expose the hypocrisy of the State power structure and the injustice it perpetuates. It is to bring to public expression those hopes and yearnings that have been denied so long and suppressed so deeply that we no longer know that they are there anymore. As Brueggemann would say, “hope is the refusal to accept the reading of reality which is the majority opinion; and one does that only at great political and existential risk.” Hence, the Naga consciousness is in response to the imperative need to inculcate a definite spirit of independence and an awareness of ourselves with the potential strength to manifest ourselves in many diverse ways. It must help us to fully grasp the notion of who we are and that we are ready to assume the responsibilities that emerges out of this realization.

At the heart of this kind of thinking is the realization that we must effectively liberate our oppressed imprisoned minds controlled by the oppressors. As Biko tells us that “it is perhaps fitting to start by examining why it is necessary for us to think collectively about a problem we never created and whether our position is a deliberate creation of God or an artificial fabrication of the truth by power hungry people whose motive is authority, security, wealth and comfort.” In our examination we will find that our situation is the deliberate creation of the powers that be. It is our collective consciousness that must provide the space to transcend beyond artificially created state identities by reaffirming and strengthening our common political identity as a Naga Nation.

Hence it is fundamental for the Church to re-locate itself in the people and their realities and to mobilize a very strong grassroots empowered to assert themselves and stake their rightful claim to live in self respect and dignity with the capacity to full expression and the confidence to transform the society as determined by the will of the people. Such a democratic process can only be realized when we as a people are convinced of the truth inherent in our stand for liberation, for we cannot be conscious of ourselves and yet remain in bondage. It is essential that the attainment of the envisioned collective self is a free collective self – a true humanity where power politics must not have a place.

To effectively examine the bankruptcy of strategy, it is essential to revive genuine liberatory politics through an effective process of critical reflection and self-analysis and to call upon all Nagas to embrace a broader understanding of self-determination so as to maximize effective and meaningful participation in the political process. Naga consciousness should embrace a wider movement for liberation that will usher in a new era of political awareness whereby the oppressed themselves take responsibility for their political destiny.

Our consciousness must relate the present to the past and reject the attempts by the powers that be to perpetuate a deliberately arrested image of our culture as uncivilized tribal. In doing so it enables us the opportunity to rise and attain the envisioned existence of the collective self. By defining our culture in concrete terms we must dispel the myths and the tendency to think of our culture as a static culture. In doing so our consciousness enables us to present and demonstrate a historical and political evolution of the modern Naga and to identify the peculiarities and uniqueness of our culture which we must intend to make it live in a real manner. Hence, our consciousness must enable us to be less dependent on the dominant culture and to resist attempts made by anybody to dehumanize our culture and our humanity.

The Naga consciousness must lead to understanding; an understanding which is the understanding of differences through dialogue which demands for relational practice and not just simply an act. Such a dialogue that appeals not out of our minds and dreams alone but out of our experiences, and hence must revolve around the practical possibilities and realities so that one does not just give in to despair, but develops a hope and a sense of security so that together we can build up our humanity. The dialogue must realistically grapple with problems and attempt to find solutions to the problems by developing a feeling of awareness of the situation. In strengthening the Naga consciousness, we maintain our solidarity that enables us to resist all attempts at the fragmentation of our resistance and to create a culture of self-assertion that originates from a common heritage of shared values, common experience of oppression and a common envisioned future.

Our path to nation building must involve the exercise of critical freedom with a deliberate idea to liberate ourselves from the control of the powers that be so that we can indeed reclaim our humanity and what belongs to us thereby reestablishing human equality inspired by the collective vision of our people and our ancestors. The great many powers of the world may have done wonders in giving the world an industrial, technological and military advanced outlook, but the great gift the Nagas can give to the world is a more human face.

Prophetic Voices of Hope calling out from afar

These are some young Naga voices sharing their perception of the Naga Church:  A paradigm shift is required from mission [evangelical] theology to liberation theology presenting Christ incarnated in Naga culture, values and worldviews which speaks the realities and represents the conscious voice of Naga people. The gospel needs to be interpreted in a new light creating new maturity and consciousness in our faith where liberation is in context of an interpretation where people can relate and find answers in the gospel that makes sense to the reality and to seek understanding and responsibilities as Christians living in a society.
 Our irony is that we have enough educated, intelligent people. The only problem is that they have stopped going into politics, and any discourse that has any thing to do with the civil and political sphere. However surprisingly they never stop going to church, they are still Christians who attend the services. To anyone's guess the Naga church forms the largest 'civil society'. On the one hand this public sphere that is often talked about has been limited by the process of militarization, but on the other hand the discussants of the public sphere (read church goers/members who form the largest section of the naga civil society) has not built up the space for any constructive discourse either.
 Does our church need to wake up and question? We have many bright, smart and educated Church leaders. I wonder why we never hear them speak about our land, I wonder why every time they attend 'secular' meetings' they prefer to stand at the 'door' and quickly disappear. The Church needs to reduce the gap between its teaching and practice.
 Are we to wait for the Lord with prayers, doors shut tightly, hands clean and with bright clean white robes for the second coming of the Lord while others die outside our doors, compounds, on the roads in our land? Where do our church stand today?? I have not seen a church that is so rigid like the ones in our land that declines 'officially' to pray for the dead whose names are not recorded on the register of the churches.
 Our church leaders need to see how radical a person Jesus is, and the fact that he was put to death for political reasons too (among other things) – and if we profess to be his followers, we have a responsibility to be change-makers in our society, to bring God's kingdom to earth, where justice will roll down, the hungry will be fed, the prisoners set free, the oppressed released, chains will be broken, the voiceless will be given voice and so on. We need to read the scriptures with new eyes, and radically apply them in practical ways in our unique situations – this is where the church desperately needs to be prophetic and visionary.
 Has the Church throughout the years been trying to build/rebuild with its own strength and wisdom and hence laboring in vain? Our situation here is a bit unique. The influence that the church yield is, how do I say? … Ironical. While the Church has lost its moral authority to lead in many ways, to be the barometer/conscience of the people, and to have stayed silent in times when they should have spoken out, it’s interesting to note that the church is still the core part of the Naga culture.
 Reconciliation even before a conflict is over is what intrigues me, scares me personally. The church must be able to discern from God on what direction to take. Reconciliation can never be long lasting, if there isn’t a “heart change.” The Church must preach about reconciliation with God first, something it has stopped preaching a long time ago.
 The Church needs to be more outspoken and specific about the actual issues confronting our people. Often a whole sermon can go by without the speaker saying anything that actually relates issues to the relevant commands in the Bible.
 The Church needs to open its doors even wider to all kinds of people. It must encourage "good" people who have been too cautiously silent, to speak up – by declaring its commitment to put up a good fight for a cause, no matter how powerful the opponents, or how many bullets it may cost. No more playing safe.
 I would love to someday see guns stacked with the umbrellas and walking-sticks outside the door, while in the house of God we would all be worshipping with one heart, as one people.
 Our Church should develop or work on the "theology of the people" and that can be done only when it is truly involved with the people, in our struggle for our families and efforts to make ends meet (for many), in our stories of leaving homes and shelters, memories of loved ones lost, our anxieties, our fears, our discouragement, our ignorance......and yes, even our accomplishments (in our shared history). We need our people to think, and to work together to bring about some sense and meaning to our struggles.
 I wish our church emphasize on "education" (on all aspects of life). How many of our churches (especially in the rural villages) have well-trained people? How often do the church members meet for studying the Word? How can the power of the Word be passed along unless taught and experience by each member of the church? Let the church come out from their narrow worldview and cultural practices that are oppressive.
 The Church should be a safe Space for telling stories: we have all shared a history of violence for decades. Those stories have been REPRESSED and kept untold. The stories some of us like to tell is made up by the lies of our oppressors and one-sided views of our leaders (who knows what they want). I feel that we need to start Telling New Story; the story of ourselves, real ones. Our pains, angers, frustrations and our deep sense of revenge and hatredness we have kept (and passed it to our young ones). I strongly feel that the church needs to create a safe space for all people to tell their stories and create many ears to listen. We've preached so many sermons; we now need to hear stories.
 Peace Education should be included in the Sunday School Curriculum as well as Christian Education in the church rather than holding on to a foreign text which has ‘Blue eye and golden hair Jesus’ who never smiles or struggles in the midst of sufferings.
 Reclaiming the role of women as peacemakers and affirming a commitment in taking a RISK. The search for a genuine, lasting peace, the prophetic dream of a transformed world/place definitely needs a focus, a definite foundation upon which all peacemaking effectively will have to be based.

Loving God, Loving Each Other – A Naga Theology in the Making

In the process of self-realization, the critical Naga consciousness on learning that theology is conditioned and limited by the social context and political setting of ones experience; will call for the immediate formulation of a theology that will be alive to our needs and aspirations and one that reflects our people’s struggles to create meaning in our lives and our existence. Naga Theology must be a theology of and for Naga people that is borne out of our experiences, our cultures and our realities; it is critical examination of our stories and wisdom and an investigation of our minds that seeks to uncover the structures of bondage that denies us to become the people that God created us to be. To know Jesus is indeed to know him as revealed in the struggle of the oppressed for freedom because God’s act for humanity involves humanity’s liberation from oppression.

The Church must therefore make the gospel relevant in the social and political context of the people so that there is a consciousness that their struggle for freedom and dignity is God’s struggle too. The task of Naga theology is to relate the peoples struggle for humanity which is an expression of the image of God. Liberation after all should not be constructed simply as a future event, but should be imparted as a divine future that breaks into the present realities of a peoples’ that bestows human wholeness in the present situation of suffering and oppression. It arouses critical consciousness in the people for self-realization that the existing state of oppression contradicts the real humanity as promised by God’s future.

There is no liberation without transformation and no liberation without the commitment to action against injustice and oppression. Therefore liberation then is not just mere thoughts in the head but is a movement of a people from oppression to freedom. Liberation implies, being delivered from a state of unfreedom to freedom and to unchain the chains of bondage. Hence, the Church must show that true liberation of self is located within the oppressed people in struggle for dignity and freedom that involves the overturning of unjust relationships and transformation of life. As Gustavo would say “the goal is not only better living conditions, a radical change of structures, a social revolution; it is much more: the continuous creation, never ending, of a new way to be human ...”

This leads to the critical ethical question “What am I to do” and as Gustavo would add, “What does it mean to be a Christian? What does it mean to be Church in the unknown circumstances of the future?” Here the Naga Churches must interpret Christian ethics based on the Scriptures and its claim that God is the liberator of the oppressed because when God is not derived from the scriptures, it is expected that the Christian ethics remains indifferent towards the oppressed and poor people.

The Church through its prophetic role must ensure that the peoples movement for the building of a nation do not contradict the struggle of freedom – the essence of striving, after all the intention of the struggle for freedom is not to victimize the oppressors because hatred and vengeance has no place in the struggle as they are a denial of freedom. The task of redemption therefore is not only about changing individuals, but also changing institutions; after all personal redemption cannot take place apart from the redemption of our social structure. God not only seeks to liberate us from the powers, but liberates the powers from their destructive course of behavior and to free us from all that would make us less than he wants us to be – fully human as free as Jesus showed himself to be – so that we can live in communion with our creator which is the basis of all human fellowship. Hence the struggle for liberation and freedom is to transform humanity in its wholeness which arises out of love, love for ourselves, love for our God and love for humanity.

The question of mutual understanding and critical accommodation is a political issue that requires political redressal which I believe the institutions of the Naga Churches have the power and the capacity to address and so I implore the Naga Churches not to bypass this political task because it invariably leads to the questions of justpeace or suffer peacefully to injustices.

Given the fact that the Naga people are so deeply embedded in our faith in a living God, the Naga Churches has before itself the finest opportunity to intervene and lead the Nagas in the formation of a democracy that can incorporate a guilty minority and a fearful majority into a single political entity focused on the politics of justice and compassion recognizing that we can be free and human only together. And along with this fine opportunity comes a daunting challenge that calls the Naga Churches and its institutions to muster the courage to initiate radical transformation that will give meaning for prophetic existence.

Therefore at its core we are all trying to make the best of what we have and what we can and to do so we must recognize that our common humanity is through the web of life, the interconnection of our beings and how our freedom and justice are tied with one another. No doubt the web of life has been abused by the more powerful, but I believe all struggling peoples claiming the gift of God’s freedom and liberation must reclaim it for the sake of the future. The fundamental factor that will shape the existence of the Naga nation will depend on how we the people respond to the call for change and what we decide to do with its future. The process of nation building indeed presents both challenges and opportunities.

As in the words of Phyllis Trible:
Speak the truth to the people
Talk sense to the people
Free them with reason
Free them with honesty
Free the people with love and Courage and Care for their being …..



Acknowledgement:

I express gratitude and appreciation to all those who participated by sharing their thoughts, opinions and by making comments and suggestions that enabled this empowering collective process of creating meaning together so that the voices for alternative consciousness is kept alive. I thank you!

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