By Joel Naga
One Nation-One Constitution. One Nation-One Tax. One Nation-One Fuel. One Nation-One Election. And the ultimate prize, One Nation-One Culture. The Culture War has begun. And it’s a War Christian Naga parents are not prepared for. The conquest of Nagaland for Christ will take place not at the point of the sword but with ideologies and Worldviews. The Christian West has lost the War -despite DL Moody, despite Billy Graham, despite GK Chesterton, despite CS Lewis, and other stalwarts of Christianity over the ages.
The doom of Christendom West began with an Idea, when Rene Descartes in the 17th Century unleashed his famous statement- I Think Therefore I Am. Thus, for the first time in consciousness, Man, not God, was considered the pivot around which everything else revolved. During the Enlightenment Period or the Age of Reason, Rousseau and other Enlightened thinkers believed in the ‘inherent goodness’ of man, contrary to biblical teachings of SIN and FALL. He postulated that man should be free to create his OWN choices and his OWN identity. Then Darwinian Naturalism arrived. In Darwin’s evolutionary theory, there was no DIVINE law or a transcendent moral order. Later on, Friedrich Nietzsche took Rousseau’s postulates further and declared the ‘death of God’. He denounced the prophets of the Old testament as shamans and rejected Christian morality as the morality of slaves and looked forward to creating a race of superhumans with no weaknesses of Christians.
In the 20th Century, there’s “No Absolute Truth” philosophy of Post Modernism brainwashed an entire generation and continues to do so.Naturalist scientists led by the late Carl Sagan chipped in with, “Nature is all that IS or ever WAS or ever WILL BE.” This is not an empirical scientific statement but a philosophy irrefutably refuting theJudeo- Christian God. An Idea sown 200 years back by Descartes came into full bloom in the later half of the 20th Century. By 1960’s Christian West was experimenting in OWN choices, OWN identity, and OWN truths. Within a generation the once cohesive society began to crumble. In Roe Vs Wade, 1973, the US Supreme Court declared that the foetus is NOT a human being and can be destroyed. By 1996, when the late Justice Antonin Scalia of US Supreme Court declared that he believed in the RESSURECTION of Jesus, America mocked and derided him- Senators to Talk Show hosts. Recently, Nickelodeon, the US based world’s famous children’s TV channel, for the first time, showed a homosexual couple as ‘normal parents’ in one of its series in US. Nickeleodon believes in the ‘truth’ that homosexuality is normal and any opposition to it is not only cruel, bigoted, and violation of human rights, but the channel has the right to dessiminate its OWN version of THE TRUTH to children all over the world. The Gospel has all but disappeared.
Backed by the RSS and BJP, a similar Worldview is invading our homes and minds in the guise of health benefit. It is entering our conciousness backdoor. But History has shown that Christians only grow stronger in faith when persecuted, and Nagas need not lose sleep over RSS or BJP converting us, like the way Christians convert peoples of other faith. But Nagas should be mindful of the fact that we are bang in the middle of a subtle Culture War, and the RSS is patient. The disappearance of the Gospel will take place when we allow apparently harmless, innocuous, inconsequential ideas but steeped in philosophy and Worldview to gain a toehold in our children’s mind; when we fail to realise that Yoga is a Special Purpose Vehicle to gain entry into our consciousness to mould or shape the Culture of the next generation Nagas according to RSS Worldview. It is little surprising that PM Modi has invested a large part of his Prime Ministership and his legacy upon Yoga. On International Yoga Day, 21st June, 2017, almost the whole country came to a standstill. Paramilitary, Army, School children, bureaucrats, politicians, teachers, corporate honchos, film stars, et al meditated in schools, parks, temples; in minus 25 degree celsius in the Himalayas, in Indian Missions abroad, in the UN, and even aboard aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya in the Arabian Sea. Yoga is a philosophy that is already shaping the mind, firing the imagination, moving the hearts and finally shaping culture. It’s much beyond the simple Meditative exercise for one’s physical well-being as is argued. Yoga is spiritual.
The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) describes Yoga as “Hindu Thought in Practice.” In it’s website it says, “The essence of Yoga is to reach oneness with God.” Indeed, Yoga is a philosophy rooted deeply in Hinduism. The root word of Yoga itself is ‘Union or Yoking’, that is, of the self with the universe to achieve Moksha or liberation. In the West, Indian Yogis and self-styled godmen sold Yoga as physical fitness regime understanding the religious and cultural sensitivity. It’s a 9 billion dollar industry. Miffed, the HAF, went on offensive to present Yoga as it IS. According to it, the two most influential Yoga practitioners, BKS Iygenar and Pattabhi Jois, were clear that “Asana (Physical Yoga) are not meant for physical fitness but for conquering the elements, energy, and so on….” In other words, you cannot seperate the physical yoga from the spiritual yoga. According to Jois, “To practice Asana …is to learn to control the body and the senses, so that the inner light can be experienced.” What is this inner light which is so different from the Christian experience?
Indian democracy is too robust and the country too diverse for cow and beef politics to prevail. But an idea in the right hands is powerful. It was a sad day when the local papers reported that hundreds of young students, and government servants came out in droves to participate in International Day of Yoga in Dimapur, Kohima and elsewhere. The battle for the minds is going to be long and drawn out. Modi’s government has quietly made Sanskrit compulsory in all the schools affiliated to Central boards. The BJP will come (and go), and come back, after all it’s a political party but not before a nation is shaped according to Hindutva Worldview. To realise the dream of One Nation- One Culture or a Hindu Rashtra, the RSS is working overtime to plant its Worldview inside classrooms and universities. RSS linked professors and intellectuals now man all the important universities and educational trusts. It is inevitable that Yoga will be made a separate compulsory subject in all the CBSE, ICSE schools in the days to come. Already children as young as Grade -2 students learn yoga as part of the subject curriculum. Then the State Boards will be under pressure to accommodate the subject. Christian-majority states like Nagaland which are solely dependent on Central funding for survival can be arm-twisted. Rumour has it that one of the former CMs when he visited Modi during his Chief Ministership was even given Yoga lessons by the PM himself!
It’s pure deception plain and simple when Naga Government servants and politicians say, “Yoga has nothing to do with religion.” Nothing could be more farther from the Truth. Both classrooms and living rooms are now battlefield grounds for our children. Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it. The Culture War has begun.
