Christianity as a way of life, demands a value-centered process which is perpetually and simultaneously in dialectic engagement with the Creator, fellow humans; nature and with ones-self. Any engagement process that neglects and avoids, or denies anyone of these components, would only handicap the nurturement of creating and developing a full humanity. For this reason, there is an imperative need to embrace Christianity as a living and relational process of reflection and action; hence a praxis that I have come to accept as being rooted in the principalities of Christ. It is in the dialectical interplay of Loving God, Loving Each Other we experience what is referred to as ‘liberation theology.’
It is here that I have come to learn and appreciate what ‘liberation theology’ has come to represent and stand for. When people hear ‘liberation theology’ they usually associate it with rebellion or revolution. The reality however is the fact that the existential conditions of revolution already existed and a theology followed once the liberating principalities of Christ were understood and embraced in its praxis. In other words, ‘liberation theology’ can be understood as the anti-thesis to an oppressive thesis, so that a just and humane synthesis can be created. As such it is a spiritual experience through its praxis in the lives of people.
The ‘liberation theology’ is rooted on the fundamental standpoint that emerges from the prophetic experiences through the socio-political context in which people find themselves, which I relate with the struggle to denounce injustices as a process of understanding the way that God’s Heaven on Earth can be fulfilled through the realization of a shared humanity. Consequently, if we are to have a praxis of justice, peace and love, it demands transcending the principalities of injustice and whatever else hinds the people. In this sense, ‘liberation theology’ is process of perpetual dynamism which molds itself into the existential conditions that if finds itself.
From this standpoint, the Church is the people and becomes one that is in concrete ways involved with people’s realities. And since it assumes a role of relevance, the Church gives meaning, purpose and hope to the people by saying something about the conditions in which they live. This helps shift the people from remaining in a position of passivity to a place whereby people begin reclaiming its humanity and exercising its prophetic roles of contributing in the divine process of creation. Liberation, after all should be imparted as a divine future that breaks into present realities. It should arouse self-realization that the existing situation contradicts the real humanity of God.
This brings us to the question that Gustavo put before all Christians, “What does it mean to be a Christian? What does it mean to be Church in the unknown circumstances of the future?” There is necessity to interpret Christian ethics based on the Scriptures because when God is not derived from the scriptures, Christian ethics remains indifferent towards people; hence removed from the realities of people. Gustavo responds by saying, “the goal is not only better living conditions, a radical change of structures, a social revolution; it is much more: the continuous creation, never ending, of a new way to be human…”
The depressing conditions in the Naga society requires prophetic leadership and critical imagination that will help create hope. A hope, which will inspire a response no longer complacent but one that will create an engaging and purposeful response to liberate and transform the human spirit and human conditions into a fulfilling situation of humanity. Persuaded by the principalities of Christ and empowered by the praxis of love, I feel there is an urgent need for Naga churches to become relevant in the daily lives of not just individuals and families, but with communities by involving themselves in the creation of a new world that will nurture the realization of a full shared humanity.
