<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Angami Baptist Church Council (ABCC) has appealed to all negotiating parties “to refrain from any more bloodshed whatever the outcome of the talks” against the backdrop of the “fragile situation” arising as talks between the government of India and NSCN(I-M) and seven NNPGs was moving to a closure.<\/p>\n
ABCC executive secretary Atsi Dolie said though the church was not a negotiating party, nor making any suggestion, yet there had been “so much blood” shed in the past including its associated hurts and wounds which would certainly outlast any final agreement.<\/p>\n
ABCC reminded that “violence begets violence” and so history’s verdict “must not be that the Naga struggle destroyed the people for whom it was launched.”<\/p>\n
It also reiterated that “life belongs to God and no one has the authority to take away someone’s life”. ABCC cited the Old Testament where those who committed “premeditated or deliberate murder” could not flee to, even to the altar of God as “murder is a direct challenge to God’s sole authority over life.”<\/p>\n
ABCC further reminded that , there was no remedial measure to atone for the violation of the image of God in a murdered person. It reaffirmed that life was precious and serious for God, therefore no one should “dare treading God’s territory”. ABCC reaffirmed that the church stood by the Bible and will not tolerate the taking away of someone’s life even if that was to be a humanly justifiable one. <\/p>\n
ABCC also said today “society is angry with almost everything” and even a call to prayer and fasting was “possibly resented.” It said this was probably because some people found it difficult to “pray for the welfare of those who mercilessly killed loved ones and made our land unlivable”. <\/p>\n
ABCC said society today was plagued with “dishonesty, betrayal, trust deficit and greed” which have taken a huge toll of Naga society. Therefore, a good outcome cannot be expected while all inputs in the process were “dirty and evil” said ABCC. It said as “consequences and ideas expressed in actions are interrelated” implying that “what we sow, we reap.” <\/p>\n
ABCC said while some were busy trying to arrive at inking a deal, there could possibly be others who were waiting for some opportune time to “unleash” their long suppressed anger.<\/p>\n
It cautioned that if people allowed themselves to be dictated by their human desire and revengeful spirit, then they could be at the threshold of the worst moment of their history. <\/p>\n
All was not lost said ABCC if only people learn to be patient, forgiving and loving one another even if that was difficult, so that it can testify to others that “our faith in Jesus Christ is real and relevant.” ABCC urged people to pray not to do evil in order to enable Nagas to build a new future together where all future generations will then rise and call them blessed. <\/p>\n
ABCC appeal to stakeholders: Shun violence whatever the outcome<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[679],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-201815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nagaland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}