Z. K. Pahrü
BTC, Pfutsero
Introduction: Are you a Church-ian or a Christ-ian? Both the Church-ian and the Christ-ian goes to Church together. Both of them pray, sing and meditate upon the Word of God. They both observe Sunday or Saturday as ‘holy day.’ They both celebrate together religious feasts and festivals. They believe in the same God. But in the deeper analysis, there is a big difference between them. In the church-ian society, one will not see much transformation taking place. In the Christ-ian society, visible sign of transformation takes place both in the individual and community life. Christianity has so far failed to establish Christ-ian community in our land.
Who are the Church-ians? Church-ians are the committed worshippers of inside-the-Church Jesus. They are people who try to keep Jesus (God) within the four-corners of the Church (in this article Church refers to visible Church building and not as universal or invisible Church). Church-ians would not allow Jesus to roam freely outside the Church. They love Jesus and try to pamper him. They want Jesus to be within the very expensive Church building, furnished with the latest infrastructures like the best curtains, costly musical instruments, sofa chairs, and attractive lighting system. Church-ians do not hesitate to spend millions and millions of Rupees for construction of Church building. It’s worth spending because they have great importance attached to Church building as ‘Worshipping Place’ or ‘Holy Sanctuary’. Year after year budgets are sanctioned and money collected from the Church members to expand and modernize their Church and its furniture. When they face ‘collection’ problem, they would cleverly said, ‘it is better to give than to receive.’
Why they attach great importance to the Church building is not difficult to understand. This is because they believe that Church is the sacred abode of God/Jesus. Their lifestyle, hence, is different inside the Church and outside the Church. They live an ‘unholy life’ outside the Church but exhibit a ‘holy life’ inside the Church. Church-ians are usually not faithful to their everyday life and its duty outside the Church. In their offices, files would be pile up wall high. Corruptions are rampant. Money pilfering is their favourite job. Killings, extortion, stealing, rape, drug abuse, gambling, drinking alcohol, etc, form part of their daily life. They do not want to let Jesus see what they are doing or how they are living outside the Church. This is the reason why they want to keep Jesus inside the Church.
Saturday or Sunday is very important day for them because on these days they go to the place (Church) where their God resides. They put on the best dresses they have and go to Church on Sundays as if they can please God by dressing well, or they can cover up their bad deeds with good dress. Church-ians pray, sing and fast on Sundays and confess their sins - the very sins to be repeated the whole week days. They give tithes and offerings so often out of compulsion or to get good name or receive praise from others. They have ‘not-in-my-backyard’ attitude towards people who are in need of their service.
They also have a very negative attitude towards people who belongs to other denomination or other faiths. Church-ians are proud of their religious affiliation as if one can go to heaven through membership to a certain denomination (e.g., Baptist, Presbyterian, Revival, Roman Catholic, etc). They are very sensitive when someone talk about their religious affiliation and would not transcend beyond their religious group. Serious attention is given to their denominational beliefs and practices rather than to the teaching of Jesus - which is a blockage to ecumenical development of Christ’s people. Church-ians so often exhibit ‘touch-me-not’ mentality when one talks about Jesus freely. They frowned when one discusses about Jesus outside the Church. They want to discuss about Jesus only when they are inside the Church. They do not find any relevance to talk of Jesus outside the Church. Their main concern is to worship inside-the-Church-Jesus.
Church-ians do not want to see Jesus in a ‘manger’- his original resting place. They want Jesus to be in a cozy chair inside a well furnished building. They do not want Jesus to face any hardship which he had faced when He was on this earth. They want to entertain Him inside the Church by performing praise and worship, skits, conducting special programme, etc. They want to keep Jesus like “Happy Prince” and while so doing almost ‘paralyzed’ Jesus. But sometimes, they find difficult to keep Jesus within the Church because Jesus wanted to be very active in transforming each individual and the whole world.
Church-ians believe God as the most ‘Holy God’. Since they worship this Holy God, they have a strong believe that they are ‘chosen race’, ‘holy people’, ‘called out from darkness’, and that they should not mix with other people (sinners or wicked people). They often hesitate to lend a helping hand to the people of other faiths, drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes, the poor and the downtrodden in the society. Their belief in “Holy God” has restricted them to reach out to this “unholy people”. Ideologically, the Church-ians have the tendency to ‘dominate’ or ‘lord’ over others like the Gentiles in Jesus’ day. Hence leadership crisis is rampant in the Church-ian Church. They do not considered ‘spiritual maturity’ as the basic qualification to become Church ministers (leaders) but relay more on one’s sex (male or female) and educational qualification and status. The rich, the educated, and the wealthy men hold respected posts in the Church and Councils. They read Bible ‘to condemn the wicked’ and pronounce Holy God’s judgment upon them. Whichever nations or individuals that do not perceive or believe God in their like manner are termed as ‘evil people or evil nation’ who deserves death physically and spiritually. They have failed miserably to understand that everyone is a child of God.
Church-ians stick strictly to the observance of religious rites and rituals. For them human beings are made for Sabbath. They consider dogmas and doctrines of the Church as basic tenets of faith or sometime even look for salvation through them. They believe that there is no salvation for people who are not members of the Church. Whatever takes place inside the Church is very important. They believe and give much emphasis on life after death. They do not bother much about life’s situation here now on earth. They are not much bothered by what is happening on this earth. They would not try to bring change or to preserve the deteriorating situation of this world. The Church-ians always expect and seek God’s miraculous intervention to solve problems be it that of family, church, or society. They believe that all problems are the result of ‘sin’ and they are helpless creatures to solve these problems. Therefore they will hardly involve in solving problem of their own or even the problems of others.
Wealth (mammon) is seeing by the Church-ians as ‘blessings’ from God in spite of originating from evil sources. Accumulation but not sharing of wealth is their dream. Church-ians backslide easily from their faith. Their acquisitiveness of wealth, political ambition and search for worldly pleasure and fame so often drifted them away easily like the people who ‘built house on sand.’
Church-ians are very much interested in adding new Church. They have limited the vast dimension of ‘mission’ of God to just one of building new Church and bringing in people-who are termed as ‘the spiritually death or the Unreached.’ They would try to send thousands of missionaries and try to bring in as many people as it could to the Church. They hijack the mission of God and make mission as ‘theirs’ and not God’s. Sometime they behave as if they can monopolize and use God to fulfill their mission ambition. What they fail to understand is that they are there to help God’s mission and not theirs.
Who are the Christ-ians? Christ-ians are the committed followers of Jesus. They are responsible co-workers of Jesus. They have Christ in their heart. As committed followers of Jesus, they put into practice what Jesus has taught them. They witness Christ through their daily lives. They are the doers of the Word. The Christ-ians encounter Jesus Christ in their everyday life. Christ-ians are angry because Church-ians were not allowing Jesus to come out from the Church. They are angry for replacing Jesus’ manger with a cozy chair which they felt Jesus would be more comfortable in his original resting place. They are angry because the Church-ians have limited the redemptive (liberative) work of Jesus to members who are inside the Church alone.
Christ-ians believed that Church-ians are ‘selfish people’ who thinks only about their own welfare. They believe that Church-ians are the Priest and the Levite who saw the ‘man beaten, robbed and laying half-dead’ on the Jericho-Jerusalem road but who took the other way and left. Church-ians have great emphasis on their outward religiosity but have no concern for people those who are in need of their service/help. Christ-ians felt that they are the Samaritan who helped the man who was ‘beaten, robbed and laying half-death’ by the Jericho-Jerusalem road. In order to establish the Kingdom of God here on earth, Christ-ians feel that the Church-ians should repent and do something for God and for the people in this world.
The Christ-ians wanted Jesus to come out from the Church and experience again the hunger and thirst that majority of world population are experiencing today. They want Jesus to see how people live in religiously and culturally pluralistic world. They want Jesus to see the good works done by many NGOs who are running Orphanage, Hospice, Old-Aged Home, and other rehab centres for alcoholics, drug abusers, prostitutes, etc. Christ-ians want the Church-ians to free Jesus so that Jesus could freely mix with people who are in need of Him. Christ-ians want Jesus to give rest to those who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens because of political domination and economic exploitation. They want Jesus to see violence, extortion, bribery, nepotism, tribalism, rape, and other injustices prevailing in our society today. They want Jesus to cleanse these ‘malaises’ from our society like the way He had cleansed the Jerusalem Temple.
The Christ-ian’s God is “Immanuel and Servant.” Most Holy God of the Church-ians is not easily approachable by sinful beings. Christ-ian’s God took the form of flesh and became human being in the person of Jesus Christ. This God –Immanuel is with His people all the time and in all circumstances. He is always there to help and serve people in need regardless of one’s creed, race, tribe, sex and age. This God demanded His followers to transform and preserve the world by acting as ‘salt and light’ of the world. Therefore, Christ-ians condemn any person or things that destroy life. They involve actively in solving problems as responsible co-workers of Christ. Unlike Church-ians, the Christ-ians read Bible ‘to seek and save the wicked’ (the lost). They read Bible to forgive other and bring reconciliation and not for self-justification. They considered biblical God as the God of love and not of destruction and of condemnation. For the Christ-ians Sabbath was made for human beings and not human beings for Sabbath. Hence, it is legitimate for them to do good things even on ‘holy days’. Christ-ians always speak the truth in love although it may be painful sometime. Speaking the truth might hurt even their own friends at times. They do not think much about their own welfare or security. They stood for justice and for greater common good. They are the real prophets of our time.
The Christ-ians understood ‘mission’ as attending to the needs (physical or spiritual) of somebody who are in need of their help. Mission is not just sending out someone and bringing in people to Church for head-count. Genuine mission is considered as faith shown through action. Christ-ians go out and challenge the oppressors, the corrupt rulers, and the rich capitalists and try to stamp out the very cause of poverty, oppression, and the downtrodden. Church-ians pray for the sick, the downtrodden, the poor, and the oppressed but do not do anything to change the system or structures that make peoples poor, sick or starve. While Church-ians love people through kind words, Christ-ians love people through action and deeds.
Christ-ian’s prayers are full of thanksgiving. They pray to God to help them to share what they have. They pray to God to give them strength to face and bear all circumstances. Christ-ians are like the wise people who ‘built house on rock’ and withstand all weathers. The Church-ians’ prayer is more of demands and complaint. They always ask for more and more blessings (wealth), more happiness and more peace. They pray to God not for strength to bear but to take away all the possible dangers and problems that they might face. The Christ-ians are peace makers whereas the Church-ians are peace seekers. The church-ians are like the Pharisee who made a self-righteous statement to God and the Christ-ians like the publican who beats his heart and called upon God. Church-ians’ main intention is how to maintain the Church: its members and building. Christ-ians’ main intention is how to transform society through transforming the individual’s heart in Jesus Christ.
Remark: We need Christ-ian and not Church-ian in our society today. Church-ians give more importance to Church’s rule and regulation than Jesus Christ. To truly transform ourselves and our society we need to be Christ-ian and not Church-ian. Do the Nagas have more Church-ians than Christ-ians today? Do they fail to practice the great commandment of Jesus which says, “Love your neighbour as you love yourself” in the world? Or were they being taken captive by Church-ian ‘mentality’ so that they have narrowed the work of Jesus to the four-corner of the Church? When killings, bribery, extortion, rape, wife battering, nepotism, cheating, and corruptions of all types are taking place in our land, how can we witness Jesus Christ to people who do not know Jesus Christ? Has the Naga society reached a saturated point of ‘many will be called but few will be chosen?’ Our daily lives must match with our professed faith.
Well, dear believers, I am not discouraging anybody to come to Church, sing, pray or listen to the word of God. However, the signs of the time reminded us once again that ‘faith without works is dead’ (cf. James 2: 26). God has chosen us not only to enjoy the ‘blessings’ of God within the Church’s life but also to go out and bear fruit (cf. John 16:15) through involvement in the wider society as ‘salt and light’ so that others may glorify God by seeing our good deeds (cf. Matt. 5: 13-16). We must be wise enough to discern that ‘not everyone who says, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven’ (Matt. 7:21) but only those who have faith and put into action will receive eternal life (Matt. 25:31-46). Today the task for theological teachers and students, church leaders and mission workers is to make people Christ-ian and not church-ian because only people with Christ in heart would be transformed and receive newness of life.
