Dr Asangba Tzudir
Having roughly traversed the historical journey of the course of the evangelizing mission, it is pertinent to seriously make an assessment of the impact of Christianity on Nagas especially on this 150th year since the planting of the First Church in Naga Hills.
As a ‘christianised’ people today, many Nagas have no qualms in portraying our own past as ‘barbaric’ living in savagery and animal like. The civilizing mission resulted in Nagas becoming civilized and transformed from a ‘naked’ to being ‘clothed’. Christianity and education taught Nagas the new ways of knowledge, life and learning and in the process gradually distanced away from cultural roots and traditional practices. This understanding of history was not entirely of our own making, but emerged out of our historical encounter with the American missionaries which led to the production of a certain kind of knowledge, which later became ‘naturalized’ among the Nagas, thereby producing a certain understanding of our history.
Now drawing upon the intent of the impact of Christianity on Nagas, the message of the civilizing mission was that ‘only the Christianized but not the heathen will be saved’, and for the first time Nagas heard about going to Heaven beyond the ‘traditional’ ‘land of the dead.’ Looking back, the American missionaries leaving the comfort of their homeland came to Nagas with their ‘Bible’ to tell Nagas about a Jehovah and took it with them, thereby leaving the Nagas to understand and find their own path to Salvation and Heaven.
Looking at the ‘condition’ or the ‘naturalized’ Naga Christianity today, the likes of Rev Perrine and Rev Haggard in particular, who started the ‘teetotal’ or ‘zero tolerance’ movement will ‘roll in their graves’ in anger. Rather than the ‘end’ objective of Christianity, we seem to be still engaged in taking pride in the number of Churches and ‘baptized Christian’ members of the Churches in Nagaland. There seems to be more of baptisms and evangelism and less of Salvation. While the focus is mainly on the tangible, Christianity has also become more judgmental today. In context, one is rather tempted to seriously question whether the brand of Christianity that Nagas have so ‘dressed’ up is able to create that impact.
If Christianity is about living in the pursuit of Salvation and being Christ-like, then we need to retrace the path of salvation; and while on Earth as Christians within Jesus as the embodiment we need to be Christ-like, that, the ‘self’ of the Naga Christian should embrace the values of love, forgiveness, respect, kindness, compassion, honesty, truth etc. Ironically, as Christians, collectively, we seem to have only gone further away from these Christian ideals.
Christianity today is in dire need of rebuilding the ‘form’ with its ‘content’, and this 150 Sesquicentennial Celebration should be taken as an opportunity to take it to heart and mind as a clarion call to create space for the process that would truly have an impact on the Naga Christians. The rebuilding of the ‘form’ of Naga Christianity should begin by universalizing and imbibing the Christ-like values rather than focusing on tangible things. If not Christianity will be in chaos.
In the beginning was the ‘Word’ of God and so profoundly it is said in the Bible that the ‘heavens and the earth’ referring to the material world and all its contents shall pass away but not the Word of God. Its 150 years now since Nagas have become Christians but we seem to be rather worshipping a material God and also moving away from the Christian ideals. It is time to seek the divine Word of God because in it is the path to Salvation and what it means to be Christ-like and how to become one. Christianity then, can be said to have created the real impact.
This is the last editorial of a three part series.
(Dr Asangba Tzudir contributes a weekly guest editorial to The Morung Express. Comments can be emailed to asangtz@gmail.com)
