Mon, may 5 (MExN): The Konyak Baptist Bumeinok Bangjüm (KBBB) has lauded what it termed as the Nagaland Baptist Church Council’s effort to maintain the “sanctity of the Church by declining BJP’s offer to clean the church compound in Nagaland” on May 11.
As per the KBBB, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) offer to clean the church compound, coming on the heels of the “recent statement that proposed to make Easter weekend as working days,” was a cause of concern.
‘The irony is, this attempt should’ve been made in our neighbourhood, where hundreds of churches need more than cleaning due to recent ethnic violence,’ it maintained.
In a statement, the apex Baptist Church Association of the Konyak community pointed out a similar pattern in recent times, including the earlier ‘insensitive decision’ to declare December 25 as Good Governance Day.
Citizens ought to pay taxes and also cooperate with any ruling dispensation for the goods and services provided to them; nonetheless, the insensitive decision ought to be vehemently condemned by all Christian members in the BJP party in the first place, it added.
The KBBB further asserted that in a democratic country, the government “cannot dictate its citizens what to worship and when to worship.”
Citing the Biblical verse, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” the KBBB further noted that though the coin is created in the image of Caesar or the Government of the day, the individuals who hold the coins are “created in the image of God.”
When “conflict of interest arises between the directive of any Government and Biblical teaching, those bearing the image of God must take the “Christian stand,” it contented.
Accordingly, it denounced the offer of church compound cleaning as “fraudulent” and stated that the KBBB churches would stand abstained from the initiative.
