Critical-21

1.1.Unknown God Approach

This approach holds the view that Mara primal religion was ‘worship of the unknown God’, the supreme being whom they did not know. This view is similar to the theological stance of St. Paul at Athens (Acts 17:16ff). While the Maras were living in Chin Hills, Myanmar, they sought to worship the god of their parents in times of stress and difficulties. They did not know the name of god of their parents and their worship sacrifice as follows:

Ah- Arise from the village.

And accept our sacrifice

Ah- Arise from the open space in the village,

And accept our sacrifice.

Ah- arise from your dwelling place,

Ah- Arise from the gathering mists.

Ah- arise from below the hill.

Ah- Arise from the village.

Ah- Arise from the floor.

Ah- Arise from the earth.

Accept our sacrifice.

From the above, it seems that the Maras are searching for god whom they did not know and addressing him in a theistic manner as Khazohpa.

Therefore, this idea of an unknown god is not a new development in the Mara religion but already existed as a hidden idea during the colonial missionary period, but comes out as a new development in the postcolonial period.

The incantation clearly indicates that although they worshipped the Being, they did not know who the Being was. And in support of this, Kam lian Buai, a theologian from Burma gave evidence from the conversion of the Maras in the Chin Hills, Burma.[1]

The validity of the unknown approach is evidence from the conversion of the Maras in Chin Hills without the help of western missionaries. What the Maras worshipped in their traditional religion was identified with the Christian God.

It successfully retrieves the religious element in Mara religion and brings out theological hermeneutics, paving the way to relate the biblical concept of the unknown God of Paul found in Acts 17:23.

1.2.Inclusive approach

This approach sees the Mara traditional religion in terms of the theology of anonymous Christianity of Karl Rahner. God has long been revealing Himself to the Mara people because our ancestors for many years worshipped God through their primal religion. In other words, the traditional Mara religion was not animism, the Mara traditional unknown god was made perfect in Christ, and the Maras were anonymous Christians.

We can also states that the Mara concept of peihrâh, expectation of life beyond in Mara tradition was identical to the Christian concept of heaven. Moreover, the moral and ethical teachings in the Mara tradition like murder, theft and self-sacrifice were advocated with certain validity as the pre-existent Christian ethics and virtues.

This inclusive approach however brought certain theological developments with positive and negative results. It has been on the one hand, strengthening and advocating the validity of God’s revelation through different cultures of the world. On the other hand, to identify the Mara primal religion with Christianity would not be acceptable in the strict sense of Christianity. Critical theological questions may be addressed to this approach for verification. However, the Mara primal religion for if all primal religion must be categorized as a vague understanding of Christian religion this may lead to subjective relativism that cannot be practiced in real life.

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[1] Kam Lian Buai, Christianity in the Hualngo Country (Yongon-Insein: Unpublished BRE thesis, Myanmar Institute of Theology, 1995), 86.