Rongmei Festivals, Baptist Spirituality, and the Limits of Indigenous Practices

Click here for further details. 

"Rongmei Festivals, Baptist Spirituality, and the Limits of Indigenous Practices"

by Rathiulung Elias KC

Where does religion 'begin' and culture 'end'? What are the 'limits' of indigenous practices according to Rongmei Baptists?

The presentation offers critical observations on the encounters between traditional lifeworld and Christianity. Gleaning from ethnographic insights on internal discourse among Rongmei Baptist theologians, it critically analyses: (i) contentions regarding the (dis)continuity of the traditional festival, Gaan Ngai, and (ii) the theological significance of a Christianised Ngai. The paper attempts to prioritise indigenous perspectives, by foregrounding the views and vernacular discussions of Rongmei theologians, which are contextualised against indigenous notions of Ngai as they are embedded in folklore, narratives, and contemporary practices. Through this, the paper demonstrates the enduring and persistent ambiguities between categories such as religion/culture, spirituality/materiality, interiority/belief/praxes, etc.—distinctions that are notoriously hard to define, and that continue to problematise the study of indigenous studies and Christianity. Finally, the paper constructively builds on Baptists’ perspective of discontinuity, albeit with a twist: suggesting focus on ‘creatureliness’ as a theological distinction (limit).