Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world – 1 John 2:15 NRSV
There is often the demand among the Naga public for the Church to be more vigilant and candid about all the societal issues that the Naga society comes across. But in the church’s role of taking up social issues, there is always the danger of pleasing the public over God. The church engagement with secular motives risks resulting in pharisaism. In the Republic, the Greek philosopher Plato uses the metaphor of the Great Beast to critique the collective will of the people, where Plato highlights the danger of understanding morality and justice solely based on the desires and passions of the populace rather than on objective truth. The French philosopher Simone Weil draws this concept of the Great Beast from Plato, outlining the ‘Social’ as the Great Beast, highlighting how it often becomes the idol for social reformers. In Jesus’ trial, it was the Great Beast that called for Christ’s death.
It will be a greater sin trying to pull and tempt the spiritual space like the Church to make itself conform to the patterns of the world and address issues according to the Great Beast. It doesn’t mean that the Church must remain silent in every social issue, but it must refrain from participating when it favours a particular group of people, such as the prioritisation of national or ethnic interests at the expense of abusing or slandering the Other. As we must not forget, it was this very worldly pattern that led Hitler to persecute the Jews, as the Jews were a non-indigenous minority whose perceived existence on European soil posed a threat to German nationalism during the Third Reich.
Usually in Nagaland, one identifies strongly with their ethnic identity (Naga/particular tribe) and religion (i.e., Christianity). The existential dilemma between these two identifications seems to set in when one has to be prioritised over the other. As to protect the Naga tradition and culture, we are somehow made to maintain exclusivity with the rest of the non-indigenous people by strictly abiding by the rules laid out by tradition and policies to avoid such dilemmas. This raises the question: does it mean that it’s impossible to practice Christian principles like loving the neighbour in the real world, as socio-cultural situations and circumstances call for religious compromise?
Was it not Isaiah and Hosea who prophesied and declared the foreign conquest of their own indigenous land, Israel, and, instead of trying to protect the land, awaited God’s judgment? As we observe in the Bible, the Divine Truth transcends the human notion of good and bad, rights and norms. I hope God doesn’t check who has more legal rights and who doesn’t in order to place judgment; that aspect belongs to its own legalistic sphere and not within the spiritual.
Saint Augustine in the City of God acknowledges that Christians live within the “City of Man” but are called to uphold the values of the “City of God” within this imperfect world, arguing that the ultimate allegiance or loyalty of Christians should be to God’s eternal city, not to any earthly nation or identity. When the lawyer asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbour?”, Jesus responded with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), a story in which the Samaritan (an outsider and enemy of the Jews) becomes the model of neighbourly love.
Let us not mistake, like the Jews did during Jesus’ epoch, who believed that the prophesied Messiah would be a political one who would rescue and avenge them from their Roman colonisers, thereby establishing his kingdom over the world politically; Jesus’ role was not of a socio-political reformer but a spiritual reformer. Regarding the current uproars over ILP, the situation must be dealt with empathy and sincerity and not with fear of subjugation, anger, or animosity. It poses a threat to human dignity when our attachment to the world and our land causes us to fail to see the image of God(Imago Dei) in those who are different from us.
~ Imjongsunep
