‘Conversion should not dilute one's ethnic identity’ Church rings ‘Promote your culture’ call

By Our Staff Reporter
IMPHAL, Sep 22 : The Mao-Poumai Baptist Church, Langol Imphal celebrated Gospel and cultural Sunday today under the theme “Our beautiful cultures for God's glory.”
The underlying message in observing the day runs on the plane, ‘A person becoming a Christian or embracing a new religion is not about abandoning or denouncing one's culture. Our conversion has nothing to do with our dresses, indigenous food habits, our language and our traditional songs. No matter what religions we change to, we can still be the same person of the same ethnic group with the same culture we belong to.”
Apart from this, the event was organised to revive and restore ‘our rich cultural heritage handed down by our fore fathers.’ The program is also to promote the respective culture  of the people and to remind the younger generation of their rich culture lest they forget their own culture under the influence of the outside world especially western culture.
On the auspicious occasion, youngsters presented a cultural parade in colourful attires and costumes. The women society sang an enthralling traditional gospel song in Mao language. Other folklores and folksongs were also presented by various groups in sector wise. Scripture was read out in their languages.
ML Dahrii and  Rev L Simon Raomai were the speakers at the morning and evening service respectively. The speakers urged the congregation to learn and love their culture and encouraged the parents to pass down their culture, customs and traditions to the younger generation as forgetting one's culture is forgetting one's identity.