Wati Aier
Introductory Remarks
In this anniversary year of the Oriental Theological Seminary (OTS), it is doubly a joy and an inspiration, in my personal pilgrimage, to be accorded with this privilege to be with our pastors and share something dear to my heart of theological praxis. This is on the area of, “Prophetic Imagination in Pastoral Ministry.”
Academically I am aware, but not well situated of the theological fact that I am a member of the congregation of the people of God -the church, and at the same time, an aspiring learner in theology. As I wrestled with this tension, God’s shalom upon me has always been assuring that the study of theology per se devoid of praxis is an anathema. My guiding consciousness from within has, “the being” and “the doing” of theology, are always pastoral in form and essence. With this paradigmatic creed, I am at ease to include myself within the “Pastoral” ministry and hence, it is safe to address as “us” (we). That is, I speak, of our common pastoral responsibility in the ministry without alluding to the “office” in the church, as commonly referred to in context. For example, the “Pastoral Office,” referred often to functions within the contextual settings, is implicitly toned to a “ruler” and “subject” relationship. We are therefore, men and women called to a common vocation grounded in the New Testament.
In today’s context of our people and history, the jargon of postmodernism and globalization have crept into our theology and social and academic thoughts. As Nagas celebrate a “coming of age,” in our land and culture, we also need to provide space for the “hermeneutics of suspicion”—that is, interpreting the language and the mode of our present times, and remaining cautious and vigilant to writing our agendas both from within and without, under the guise of “God’s mission,” and various religious studies under the garb of “Christian Theology.”
To be more explicit, we are seeing cultic phenomena of idolization of personalities and by the same token personal idolization in the name of the Holy Spirit coupled with false prophesy and fenced mentality in the emergence of charismatic-independent movement, often ignited by home grown free lancers and from abroad. For many young ones, such settings have provided them with social and psychological outlets, often not found in the mainline denominational church.
Equally, under the romanticism of postmodern philosophy, a backward looking in the name of theological discipline, albeit welcoming, needs a critical and analytical approach. Within the clique of “academic theology,” today, churches and Christian institutions must sort out the importance of the studies of “primal religious practices” and folk narratives as knowledge and study of Christian faith as moving through the linear basis of history with imagination and vision espoused by the biblical prophets and the kingdom inaugurated by Jesus.
It is my sincere thought that knowledge of our past is never to be ignored and this is where many of us get bogged down. However, in juxtaposition to recapitulating the past and into previous points of folk narratives, prophetic imagination is always forward looking. George Lindbeck, writing a decade before the age of postmodernism, called upon the church in the postmodern age to an imaginative missional theology of “larger cultural conversion.” I admit that this proposition has struck me towards this presentation. Prophetic imagination invites us to think theology in its right place as the “divine passion: that is the open wound of God in one’s own life and in the tormented men, women, and children of this world” (Moltmann’s lecture quoted by Volf, The Future of Theology, 1996, p. 112). This draws us to the open wound of the world as the field of our pastoral ministry, where we announce the coming reign of God. This is what larger cultural conversion attempts to explore and proclaim.
The Contextual Clamor for a Paradigm Shift
In context among the Nagas, it is my observation that nowhere is there an institution, neither the State nor the apex tribal organizations and bodies, which wields respect and converts such following as the church. However, akin to the early church in the history of Christendom, the collective-identity of God’s people (ecclesia) of “Following the Way” (Christ), in context needs renewal. Our conversion and the resultant witness should bear a radical life style of “nonconformity” (Rom 12: 2) and prophetic action. As such, we are divinely endowed with a possibility of a unique “institution” with spiritual and social paths of blossoming and flourishing (Isaiah 35).
At the core of this institution lies the pastoral vocation of ministry. Our vocation is not to be considered as synonymous with exercising leadership in the same way the institutions of our society functions. Our paradigm is Jesus Christ, who was not in conformity to the patterns and standards of this world. It is here that we are called to a prophetic imagination in pastoral ministry. Prophetic ministry is not about prophesying. It is about interpreting and announcing God’s revolutionary changes in the unfolding of history.
Equally, prophetic imagination has to live up to one’s commitment to Christ robustly by doing ministry outside the conventional box of redundancy. Prophetic imagination is all about transforming dry and thirsty lands into bubbling streams, and crooked places into highways of God’s righteousness in the lives of the people and the renewal of society. Only when we discover this and announce it in our proclamations and actions, will the true meaning of the church as the collective-identity of Christ be validated and the world will say, “These trouble makers have changed the world upside down” (Acts 17: 6).
Prophetic imagination is neither romantic nor idealistic. Transformative changes will be evident when we once again discover afresh the radical claim of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as God’s good news to the world, and its claim upon individuals of the collective-identity.
Those phenomena associated to humanistic spirituality of emotionalism, “energy,” feeling, transcendental experience, extra sensory perception, and healing are being co-opted into our theologies without testing the “Spirit.” It is in all these signs of time that our prophetic imagination must be sharpened through knowledge and wisdom and nourished from the “deep well” of God’s Spirit.
To be sure, unlike other secular callings, prophetic imagination in pastoral ministry requires a trusted “Friend” in whom we remain anchored. In the midst of our pluralistic religions, societies, and cultures, we should make no apology to the particular-preferential stance of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, while also being mindful of respecting other belief systems, and not employing imperialistic, theological coercion.
We must have faith and hope in the possibility of God’s Spirit working in people’s lives through his triune creative work of salvation and his faithful servants. This is what is called the Matchless Paradigmatic Christ, the creed of prophetic imagination in pastoral ministry.
Prophetic Imagination: Content of the Church, the Collective-Identity
With our passion for renewal and transformation of our society, we must urgently analyze the content of the church. The underlying issues for us are not simply all the ills of society per se, but the content of the church’s life in our context.
Unlike our contemporary, and fragmented, social, political, and tribal realities and agendas, prophetic imagination orients us in the workings of God in the history of the church as the collective identity. This collective-identity is not only characterized by a common dialect, history, and belongingness, but more importantly, is defined by the witness of Jesus Christ through one baptism and breaking of the bread and drinking the cup, and is solely dependent upon the pouring of the Holy spirit.
This event identifies the church as the collective-identity of God sealed by the Holy Spirit for the work of Christ in the world and hence, is a truly Trinitarian theology. This is special: the collective-identity of people of different sizes and shapes, of social strata, of clans and families, of “factions” are knitted together in ways that sociology would make us believe otherwise. We become sisters and brothers in the household of the collective-identity.
Prophetic imagination must stress that there is no hope for the Nagas, as well as others, without this theological understanding of the collective-identity made up of various tribes, languages, groups and ideologies. Today, besides tribalism and clan-ism, nationalism has sedated and seduced us: the people. It has become a tool of domination, inciting one group against another. The tentacles of this “beast” (Rev. 16: 2, 19: 20) has rendered us fearful and hopeless, and at the same time, this beast’s reach is moving from national politics to “factional” ideologies and sadly many leaders are feeding this beast to strength.
Today, the collective-identity must move beyond our boundaries and take the prophetic message of a common life by rejecting the violence manifested in the form of unforgiving cultural prides and exclusion that ignites one against the other. The collective-identity belonging solely to God the Father, empowered by the Holy Spirit for Christ’s mission can break the walls and boundaries suffocating us, only when our prophetic imagination is fleshed out.
In our “Journey of common hope” of the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR), we have, time after time heard our Naga “factional” leaders say, “there is hope only in the church.” Shall we disappoint their hopes? While others are hoping on us, we are robbed of hope in the Triune God, by our refusal to take that leap in the name of keeping the sanctity of the Gospel pure. The inward attitude of our theology with a limited Gospel, a pocket God, and a Christ that soothes our consciousness, will always curtail the kingdom of God from blossoming and flourishing and thus, becoming the great hope for people.
Today’s prophets must believe that we are as Moltmann says, the “hope of God” in our society. God’s reign of peace, justice, and righteousness will come only when we are ready to become and act as the hope of God in our society. In ministry, those who have experienced and suffered the beast in every form in the world and the Gospel are always the ones who have known the joy and hope of Christ more abundantly.
Our prophetic imagination must be equipped by spiritual discernment and alertness to the forces of history. We need to prophetically pronounce about the impending consequences of our present historical forces and choices.
The Nurturing of Prophetic Imagination in Pastoral Ministry
In my personal “journey of common hope,” I have the Quakers—a band of committed people—and my wife Alongla, who are totally committed and supportive of my well-being, my spiritual health, and my political faithfulness to Naga reconciliation. Their support and commitment has sustained me in the face of personal failures, threats, difficult times, and whatever may happen, even death.
The important connection between prophetic imagination and nurturing has remained at the core of my pilgrimage. The hermeneutics of imagination and nurturing remain central to my theology of Christ finding me. I have learnt the hard way that the crises of prophetic imagination and nurture can be devastating in ministry.
More pointedly, without nurture, the collective-identity will quickly deplete in the quest for imagination. Without imagination the collective-identity will perish. Differently stated, imagination alone is incomplete. Imagination without nurture can be too burdening. Unless we, as part of the collective-identity, are being nurtured in the imagination around which we are called to act, there will be no collective-identity. This is perhaps, the crisis seen in our collective-identity.
Without a prophetic imagination challenging people of the collective-identity to follow Christ in the public arena, pastoral nurture alone has tended to degenerate into idolization of their group, and lead to the withdrawal of living faith from the public arena.
It is in this area that I am concerned. That is, the separation of prophetic imagination and pastoral nurture is one of the most damaging dimensions in the life of today’s collective-identity. Holistic approach is an urgent biblical necessity of our time for the content of the collective-identity.
To preach of reconciliation, of loving the poor, of public faith, and making Christ incarnate in our midst, etc., is to talk of the content of the collective-identity. In the same way, to talk of worship renewal, of counseling for wholeness and healing, of revival and mission, etc., is also to talk of the content of the collective-identity.
Most of us in the collective-identity are not sure how our faith ought to be shown in public squares, nor how people of the collective-identity are to be committed to practicing our faith publicly, say for example, in State elections, office attendance and work, malpractices, etc.
Our faith, often times, is not operational in the way it should be. Practice of faith in public and political lives—for example, to be truly committed to clean elections—ultimately requires maturity in our Christian life. Prophetic imagination should be prepared to nurture the people of the collective-identity to maturity. This will require a band of strong pastors with clear intention in order to develop that kind of Christian maturity.
In the FNR’s “journey of common hope,” before we embarked on the reconciliation ministry, factional arrests and killings were a daily affair in our society. We needed to draw inner strength and this came through a band of committed members, spending much time in prayers and planning. Along with this, the unreserved support we received from each of the members was qualitatively transforming.
I was no longer alone and the members were on “fire from heaven” (Cox) as we put our lives on the line. Even some members who were less inclined to prayer and fasting started to make changes in their lifestyles. Before the actual reconciliation ministry began, we needed unswerving commitment to each other for the work and God’s anointment upon us.
A strong pastoral fraternity among us can very well be the prelude to transformative changes and transformational development of our society through the maturing process of the collective-identity. Precisely, we can begin by meeting periodically for discussions and prayer towards prophetic imagination and nurturing the collective identity. This concept should be done with a clear objective, without disturbing other pastoral responsibilities we all must attend to. Such an idea is also a prophetic imagination of not letting daily responsibilities deter us from what is urgently called for through the signs of time. This could very well be the kairos moment for us!
Prophetic Imagination for Social Revival
Logically, this provides us with a prophetic imagination for transformative mission in the life of our society. The collective-identity must be inspired to witness in all its fronts, ranging from the market places to learning institutions and from the public offices to the streets of the neighborhoods, that Christ has overcome the “powers and principalities . . . triumphing over them by the Cross” (Col 2: 15).
The collective-identity must witness that our hope and belief in the future of our society comes from the reality of our transformation leading to a “new heaven and a new earth” (Rev 21: 1), which is not easily destroyed by the beast. We must believe that we have been set free to announce and to create new paradigms within our society, by generating righteousness, justice, and peace through the witness of the collective-identity in the power of the crucified Christ.
Looking into the American history of revival movements of the 19th century, it is highly notable that “otherworldly” theological ideals took corrective measures when Christianity ceased to have an influence on society. Factors such as slavery, poverty, creed, urban maladjustments, social and industrial strives, Darwinism, and the humanistic psychology, turned Christian minds led by acclaimed Christian university professors, “ministers” (pastors), and revival preachers toward social reconstruction.
In context, after two historic revival movements, at the middle and third quarter of the 20th century, what are some of the most notable transformative changes that we can empirically ascertain? Without being too critical in looking back, we can affirm that some great things have taken place to the lives of the Nagas and the others living in our lands. By the same token, an honest appraisal of our Christianity in context is called for, if our theology will prove to have any value. As heirs of the radical Reformation of the 16th century, Baptists need to discover that the doctrine of sanctification is a dynamic and forward movement of witness and transformation. We Baptists need to discover that Christ cannot be hidden at the inner core of one’s piety alone. We need to dismiss the social arena as the domain of the beast.
Our prophetic imagination of mass revival meetings and evangelistic programs must become the platforms not only for personal transformation, but also social transformation. Together, plowing the land to flourish, the collective-identity remains the salt and the light of society, and gives us the taste and vision that reveals the possibility of a new society.
Conclusion
In the course of preparing for this occasion, with our respected pastors, I wrestled with my theological imaginations as a learner and a teacher for decades. I must admit that my wrestling is admittedly a restlessness of my spirit in such a time as ours. Misplaced theology is “useless,” as Barth found it out in his trying days of political and theological imaginations. Misplaced theology in pastoral ministry in such a time as ours may very well be the crux of the matter.
Without running away from what I started to say, now I shift from “we” to “I.” It dawned on me, as if I had never said it before—should I say, existentially?—that my theology was becoming redundant and “useless” with all the hypes and shades. In waking up, I realize that I am alive, not a Cartesian realization, but in gratitude to my Lord and Savior and I think, therefore, that I am a finite human saved by grace. Having been touched by the “fire,” to sit passively is a theological crime.
I appeal, therefore, to my common travelers of the way of the cross, to a prophetic imagination of cognition, and of transformative praxis for the society. I can’t help imagine that “we” could very well be those men and women of the present generation of Nagas—of whom history will point one day and say, “Those men and women changed our world-history.”
Rev. Dr. Wati Aier is the Principal of Oriental Theological Seminary
