It's not an ideal holiday plan I had in mind but my parents desperately wanted me to go to this gospel camp tomorrow and its going to last for three days. It sux coz I only have just about five days before we start school again and I'm not really a spiritual person.
Apart from me being anti-social, gospel camping is really not my thing. I'd rather find God by myself and I prefer not to cry, dance, scream Halleluia and share my testimony in front of the hundreds of people. So just because my father is a pastor don't expect the Kumbaya shit from me after I come back, not gonna happen.
.
In my opinion our community has heard too many versions of the word of God. The way to become born-again is now too complicated because there are way too many believes and ideas, too many different denominations. It's just too confusing for people like me who have too much free time to over think about everything. What Mizoram needs at the moment is not another pastor or denomination but people who reads Bible and making decisions by themselves.
To be honest I have some issues with Christianity. It is said that you have to be born-again to go to heaven right, so here's my question. What happens to our forefathers who had never heard the word of God because nobody told them. After they die will they go to hell? You have to be born-again to go to heaven right, it's just not fair because nobody ever told them about Jesus and the people who finally told them about Jesus were the same people who came to India so that they can enslave us politically and economically. Let me give you another example, let say I was stranded in an island by myself and I've never heard of Jesus, suddenly its judgement day and God asked me why I am not a born again Christian. Then I tell God that I live in an isolated island and the missionaries never came. Where do you think God will send me? heaven or hell? Am I being arrogant or blasphemous for asking these stupid questions?
I use to think that we were doing a great job sending missionaries to more backward places (I mean no disrespect to missionaries) but I am not so sure anymore. One of my friend in College asked me this, he was a Hindu, well, a beef eating Hindu but I can never forget what he said. We do open schools, health facilities and do other charity work in backward places and he said that we only do this as a bribe so that these people will convert to Christianity. He is implying that we blackmail these people into converting into Christianity. There was a time when there was a rumour that some people were bribed to convert into Hiduism in Mizoram and the church was not too please with it. I even hear pastors talking about it in the church.We bribe them, they bribe us so why complain. We are such hypocrites. One thing is clear though, the Mizo community is very intolerant towards other religions. I can only hope we don't involve violence.
I guess having doubts about Christianity or religion as a whole is pretty common among my generation. What happens when we die? Is there a heaven or hell? Are we just going to float around like ghosts with all the other dead people? Or do we just cease to exist? Life is full of unanswered questions.... What do we really know? What is the purpose of being here? Did someone put us here for a reason or are we here just by chance? Is being religious just a phase for people in the developing world? To be honest I couldn't care less if we are here by chance, and that our existence is due to some rare coincidence. I am not saying I don't believe in God. I mean lets face it, what do we really know about the Universe. We have only gone to the moon, Whats lies beyond our galaxy and what lies beyond that and beyond that. So maybe there is a God somewhere who created all this. When you think about these things you realize how insignificant we are and how little we really know.
Anyways, I have no choice but to go at least to please my parents. Maybe I'll experience some life changing event, Maybe I turned out like those really spiritual, slightly crazy people I was criticizing. I don't know. Plus this camping from what I've heard is going to be more like a Bible study, seems its not going to be the typical Mizo gospel camping if you know what I mean. On the bright side the preacher is Mr Lianchhunga, one of the best young BCM Pastors. I have heard some of his sermons and I like it coz I feel his sermons are based on logic rather than emotions, plus he's pretty good with Microsoft Powerpoint. But I'm still not too thrilled about it, especially coz it's during the holidays. Bottom line is my parents want me to go and I have been a brat for as long as I can remember. So got to take this one for the team (my family) I guess.
Apart from me being anti-social, gospel camping is really not my thing. I'd rather find God by myself and I prefer not to cry, dance, scream Halleluia and share my testimony in front of the hundreds of people. So just because my father is a pastor don't expect the Kumbaya shit from me after I come back, not gonna happen.
.
In my opinion our community has heard too many versions of the word of God. The way to become born-again is now too complicated because there are way too many believes and ideas, too many different denominations. It's just too confusing for people like me who have too much free time to over think about everything. What Mizoram needs at the moment is not another pastor or denomination but people who reads Bible and making decisions by themselves.
To be honest I have some issues with Christianity. It is said that you have to be born-again to go to heaven right, so here's my question. What happens to our forefathers who had never heard the word of God because nobody told them. After they die will they go to hell? You have to be born-again to go to heaven right, it's just not fair because nobody ever told them about Jesus and the people who finally told them about Jesus were the same people who came to India so that they can enslave us politically and economically. Let me give you another example, let say I was stranded in an island by myself and I've never heard of Jesus, suddenly its judgement day and God asked me why I am not a born again Christian. Then I tell God that I live in an isolated island and the missionaries never came. Where do you think God will send me? heaven or hell? Am I being arrogant or blasphemous for asking these stupid questions?
I use to think that we were doing a great job sending missionaries to more backward places (I mean no disrespect to missionaries) but I am not so sure anymore. One of my friend in College asked me this, he was a Hindu, well, a beef eating Hindu but I can never forget what he said. We do open schools, health facilities and do other charity work in backward places and he said that we only do this as a bribe so that these people will convert to Christianity. He is implying that we blackmail these people into converting into Christianity. There was a time when there was a rumour that some people were bribed to convert into Hiduism in Mizoram and the church was not too please with it. I even hear pastors talking about it in the church.We bribe them, they bribe us so why complain. We are such hypocrites. One thing is clear though, the Mizo community is very intolerant towards other religions. I can only hope we don't involve violence.
I guess having doubts about Christianity or religion as a whole is pretty common among my generation. What happens when we die? Is there a heaven or hell? Are we just going to float around like ghosts with all the other dead people? Or do we just cease to exist? Life is full of unanswered questions.... What do we really know? What is the purpose of being here? Did someone put us here for a reason or are we here just by chance? Is being religious just a phase for people in the developing world? To be honest I couldn't care less if we are here by chance, and that our existence is due to some rare coincidence. I am not saying I don't believe in God. I mean lets face it, what do we really know about the Universe. We have only gone to the moon, Whats lies beyond our galaxy and what lies beyond that and beyond that. So maybe there is a God somewhere who created all this. When you think about these things you realize how insignificant we are and how little we really know.
Anyways, I have no choice but to go at least to please my parents. Maybe I'll experience some life changing event, Maybe I turned out like those really spiritual, slightly crazy people I was criticizing. I don't know. Plus this camping from what I've heard is going to be more like a Bible study, seems its not going to be the typical Mizo gospel camping if you know what I mean. On the bright side the preacher is Mr Lianchhunga, one of the best young BCM Pastors. I have heard some of his sermons and I like it coz I feel his sermons are based on logic rather than emotions, plus he's pretty good with Microsoft Powerpoint. But I'm still not too thrilled about it, especially coz it's during the holidays. Bottom line is my parents want me to go and I have been a brat for as long as I can remember. So got to take this one for the team (my family) I guess.
