Thepfulhouvi Solo
Lined up some several steps ahead in the front of the starting Block rather than behind it on Lane No.6 of personal Tract in the race for 80 years; personally I was attracted more for deep spiritual ‘revealed messages’ of the Jubilee than for the grand festivities in the modernistic Convention Hall -materials imported from France- and excellently beautified interior on the occasion of the 75th year of Nagaland Baptist Church Council with glittering foreign Speakers, Delegates and participants from as far away as Denmark, from as near as Bodos of Assam and Thailand, not the least, very happily from Japan who came with their Soul to bless Nagas, Baptists or not.
Honestly speaking, my purchase of Spiritual Electricity was not much from the Meetings. Often, Grand Social, Political or Entertainment gatherings, even Religious ones, produce outward visible things more proficiently than inward invisible matters. Politicians, People seeking for Power, even some in the Church, often make great pronouncement from elevated public places of huge gatherings what they do not in reality maintain and thus turn hypocrites in the eyes of others. People in Power, often annunciates with great fanfare lofty democratic principles for the world to hear but do not practice them themselves on the helpless needy Sections inside their own Country; Jubilees may also sometimes have such loopholes.
One of the greatest challenges the Church in poor and developing Societies like in Nagaland face, is the Church’s concern for maintaining healthy distance between the Church and Caesar. Naturally the question that comes foremost to discerning Christians in economically poor, doctrinally wayward Nagaland today is: How far has our Organization Leaders managed to keep the correct Christian distance from Caesar? In their desire to keep the Organization spectacularly the grandest in limelight: have they maintained the Church in correct Christian distance from the house of Babylon?
This may seem a small question but it has the potential to tremendously imperil the Church Organization’s Freedom-in-Christ in the coming days. Spiritual considerations aside, perhaps the grandest, the biggest, the most spectacular NBCC programs so far has been the 75 year Platinum Jubilee celebration just concluded. And there would be little doubt that it produced far reaching consequences of immense Social, Economic and Relational opportunities, particularly for the State of Nagaland and for the good of the people.
First, the Jubilee brought in the idea of Beauty in the life of the Nagas. The people of Kohima City were taken into the sense for Beauty in the city life. This has opened a consciousness to engender a move towards beauty in the life of the people in the Society. Nagas in particular, are traditionally and customarily conscious of the need of cleanliness and personal beautification mostly during yearly Festivals only. The Jubilee introduces the idea of the goodness of permanent beauty as a higher, better and more desirable dimension of civilized life. For Weeks before the Jubilee, a sense for Cleanliness Drives in the City were initiated and Groups of people in the Colonies, NGOs and Individuals were roused to joining hands in the drive for cleanliness and beautification of their places.
For the first time, beautification of the common places in the City took queue on the line of beautification of the modernistic jubilee convention Hall with tastefully decorated interiors. Beauty, particularly of permanence, is a character of Nature and the more civilized a society is, the greater that society takes care to attain beauty in its life.
The boundary between ‘going after Fashion’ and ‘Beauty’ is however very thin and Nagas need to differentiate them: Fashionableness is perhaps not a bad thing but it is valued less than Beauty. A life of beauty is a life of quality. I hope the Jubilee would give the Nagas a clue to be in the queue for beauty in their lives.
Big public events like the Olympic, the World Cup Tournaments etc generates great economic benefits, it generates work and thus provides employment and economic earnings to a great many people. One of the greatest benefits of great gatherings of diverse people in one place is that it brings tolerance, narrows discrimination between different peoples. Sea Beaches, Sports Stadiums or places of public Protests, Dharnas are usually places and occasions where no one comes across discriminations among the different communities in the gatherings. These places brings people together and creates tolerance in man. The NBCC Jubilee brought diverse communities of people into one place together -a great thing over and above the economic considerations.
The NBCC 75 year Jubilee represented the great Idea of ‘Humanity Together in Christ’. This lofty Idea is brought out perhaps more frequently in Christian Circles than in others. The World has accepted this Christian Idea and organized itself into a League of Nations and then into United Nations Organization. However; how far the world in Reality is from its Idea, is a measure every one of us know better than how near is the world to the Idea. Happily, the idea of ‘One World’, One Human Family’ comes out easer in the Christian communities than in others.
I do not in any detail know in what degree of seriousness had the NBCC Platinum Jubilee took the theme: “ONE NEW HUMANITY IN CHRIST”. This is a theme as old as the Old Testament Bible and Christianity itself but the amount of rust the Idea is encrusted even in tiny Naga Groups indicate a measure of the Gap between Idea and Reality in Christian Nagaland also. The FNR with very loose umbilical cord connection with the Church Organizations has been praying, playing and sermonizing ceaselessly on the Theme -‘One People of All Nagas’ but so far the commitments of the Groups have proved unreliable and there is still a big chasm between them. Loud pronouncements without Reality are just empty Sounds.
Yet, the theme is very appropriate for the Christian Nagas today who are in deep cross-roads of division and suspicion of one Group from the other of its many Groups. How far will the NBBCC seriously work out the Idea among the Nagas themselves is a daunting question. Will the Organization seriously put into practice its pronouncement? This will be a great test of the NBCC credibility in the coming days in the Naga context; if it could not put into Reality its lofty pronouncements from elevated places, it would be a considerable blot to the Organization.
The Jubilee produced a Platinum Resolutions touching various pertinent Issues that confront the Naga Society today. The Resolutions however sounded not powerful enough. The Meat Cut of the Resolutions appears to have good quantities of Fat but too much of soft meat and too little of Bones. Nagas like to have bones so that they can chew the bones and suck the tasty marrow found only inside hard bones. The Jubilee resolutions appear to be boneless. The weakest point however perhaps is that the somewhat verbose Resolutions ring inspired by men of the world rather than by the Spirit that reveals and that perhaps is the indication of the distance between Church and Babylon. The Resolutions sound to be a wise collection of many cares of the world.
Personally I would have wished a powerful celebration such as the one just concluded could have energized the Nagas society tremendously for the future good if the powerful potentials of the occasion were channeled into a few crisp concise strong Resolutions among which could have been:
i. The NBCC discourages the PRIVILEGES AND OPPORTUNITIES of the ‘Haves and the Powerful’ that perpetuates disproportionate Economic disparity in the helpless ‘Have-nots’ of the Naga Society.
ii. The NBCC’s strongly re-iterates its core Agenda still remains the Spiritual Issues -the source of life- of the Nagas rather than in the many worldly cares.
The enthusiasm with which the normally unintelligible Lingual Associations participated the Jubilee Programs, the happiness with which unknown People from far-off lands beyond the Sea added and shared their blessings with Nagas, Baptists or not, forebodes great opportunities the Jubilee has introduced to the Nagas. The Naga World is definitely enlarged, widened and enlightened most hopefully for the better. The Jubilee has greatly opened the Nagas worldly horizon.
