Konyak Baptist Bumeinok Bangjüm (KBBB) has lauded Nagaland Baptist Church Council’s (NBCC) efforts to maintain the sanctity of church by declining BJP’s offer to clean church compounds in Nagaland.
KBBB executive secretary Rev L Metjen in a statement said the BJP’s proposal, against the backdrop of the recent statement that proposed to make Easter weekend as working days, to clean church compounds was a cause of concern.
He pointed out that the irony was the attempt should have been made in the neighbourhood where hundreds of churches needed more than cleaning due to the recent ethnic violence.
He quoted Mark 12:17: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
Metjen mentioned that Caesar, owing to Pax Romana, needed to be acknowledged for the peace and security that the Roman government provided, while citizens ought to pay taxes and also cooperate with any ruling dispensation for the good and services provided to them. Nonetheless, he stressed that the insensitive decision to declare December 25 as the Good Governance Day ought to be strongly condemned by all Christian members in the BJP.
He pointed out that government in a democratic country could not dictate its citizens what to worship and when to worship.
“Though the coin is created in the image of Caesar or the government of the day, but we, as individuals, who hold the coin are created in the image of God.
Suffice it to say, therefore, that when the conflict of interest arises between the directive of any government and Biblical teaching, make no mistake, we who bear the image of God, must take our Christian stand,” he emphasised.
Therefore, denouncing the offer of church compound cleaning as fraudulent, he declared that KBBB churches would abstain from the BJP’s proposed act on May 11, 2024.