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Nat Worship: A Theological Locus in Myanmar

by Simon P. K. En

“Nat” is an anglicized form of the Burmese word meaning spirit and thus Nat Worship means Spirit Worship, which is the primal religion of the people of Myanmar.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the primal religion of the people in Myanmar can be employed as a theological locus for doing a viable contextual theology for Myanmar. Among the two-third world churches, primal religio-cultures can serve as one theological locus and the gospel will remain the unincarnated Word of God until it is perincated in the matrix of one’s particular culture and expressed with the religio-cultural element of that particular people. This is not to romanticize culture for there are many evils in culture which at best hindered people in their quest for maturity at best and at worst led to their dehumanization. If properly and critically dealt with, the religio-culture of the people in Myanmar can serve as theological locus and can enrich the gospel.

1. A Brief Survey of Christianity In Myanmar

Before dealing with the primal religio-cultural elements, the writer will offer a brief survey of the churches in Myanmar. The gospel reached Myanmar a long time ago with the coming of two Catholic Italian priests to the Kingdom of Ava in 1720. In spite of this early contact with the gospel, the following characteristics of churches in Myanmar have held them back from creating a viable contextual theology.

Alienation of Christianity - The identification of Christianity with colonialism, the negative attitude of the missionaries towards the religio-culture of the people and the mass conversion of the ethnic groups in the frontier areas, led to the alienation of Christianity in the country. The theological challenge for Christians in Myanmar today is: how to Burmanize the gospel. It had already christianized the people for over two centuries with little success.

Two Versions of Christianity - Two versions of Christianity, culture-oriented Christianity of the ethnic groups and Buddhism-oriented Christianity among the Bahmas living in the more sophisticated society, create great difficulties for the task of rooting the gospel in Myanmar soil. A common basis needs to be pursued. This the present writer found in Nat Worship.

Struggling for SeLfhood - The churches in Myanmar practiced “selfhood” in other aspects such as self-support, sell-government and self-propagation but not in selftheologizing. In default of this, the churches in Myanmar became “duplicates” of their mission progenitors in the West. How to make the churches in Myanmar into the churches of Myanmar is a theological challenge for Christians in Myanmar.

II. Theology in Nat Worship

This writer found a common basis for a relevant contextual theology in the primal religion of the country, which is none other than Nat Worship. Both of the two imported religions, Buddhism and Christianity, are no more than veneer over the surface of “Nat Worship” and if scratched, the crude Nat Worship that lurks below must be revealed. Instead of pretending that the Nat elements have been totally discarded and eradicated, Christians have to recognize the tenacious presence of Nat elements and try to apply them in a positive and constructive way in doing vital contextual theology for Myanmar. With this in mind, the writer would like to bring out some of the theological elements inherent in Nat Worship.

World view of Nat Worship (Weltanschauung) - The world view of Nat Worship is integrated and unified and also contemporaneous in that it does not look at things in a dualistic way. Life and death are both a part of existence and therefore there is no neat demarcation between spirituality and secularity. This is a right understanding of the Christian concept of salvation which embraces both the ‘here-and-now’ and the ‘hereafter’.

The Concept of a Supreme Being - All the myths and traditions of the racial groups amply revealed that belief in the existence of the supreme Deity was inherent in the primal religions of the people. Myths and traditions from three ethnic groups viz, the Kayins, the Kachins and the Chins, were chosen as representative of the beliefs of all other ethnic groups. The theological task now is how to develop these innate beliefs to express the Christian God more intelligibly to the people.

The Concept of Ecology - The third contribution of Nat Worship to doing contextual theology is the concept of ecology. In Nat Worship, it was believed that every place and object was haunted by the spirits - the Nats. To violate a place or an object such as a tree, a rock, a river, etc., is to a serious trespass to those guardian Nats and misfortune will fall upon the guilty as punishment. Fear of the Nats kept people from despoiling nature and led them to conserve it. When the people of Myanmar became adherents of Christianity, however, this sense of veneration and conservation of nature disappeared. Though they believe that God is both the creator and preserver of nature, as they once believed that the Nats haunted nature and objects, their belief in God could not prevent them from spoiling or destroying nature.

Though Myanmar is not an industrial country harming nature by polluting the air and water with toxic wastes, the country is being deforested without thought for its effect upon the distant future. In the remote rural areas, the practice of shifting [nomad?] cultivation with its slash and burn system will eventually make the whole region barren. Wild animals are killed in hunting games, fish cleared from rivers by poisoning and dynamiting. It is very sad that Christians have become more the destroyers of nature than stewards of God’s creation. God does not seem as powerful in his/her jurisdiction as the Nats once were in Nat Worship. How to transfer this concept of respect and veneration for nature inherent in Nat Worship to the Christian concept of stewardship of God’s creation is an urgent theological agenda for Christians in Myanmar.

The Concept of the Faith Community - In Nat Worship there is a ritual community based on consanguinity. The role of the priest towards the ritual members and the responsibilities of the ritual members both towards the priest and fellow members are similar to that of the ‘church’ in the New Testament. If the concept of this ritual community can be extended to be more inclusive through the ‘blood of Christ’ (from the social consanguineous kinship) then the concept of the church in the NT will be perfectly understood by the people and a more viable ecclesiology can be restructured in the churches.

A candid survey of mission work in Myanmar will confirm the fact that the gospel has not yet encountered the culture of the People and thus the gospel remains unincarnated. A mutual cross-fertilization has to take place between gospel and culture; the gospel has to prune the culture and the culture needs to enrich the gospel.

III. Conclusion and Recommendation

There are many other elements in Nat Worship which can be conducive to a better understanding of the Christian concepts of salvation, the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, and life after death, etc. To this end, Christians need to make a bold departure from the legacy of the missionaries and make a critical analysis of their own cultures. At the practical level, a Research and Study Center for Culture should be established urgently so that the innate cultural values of the multi-ethnic groups in Myanmar can be surveyed and be available to theologians. Intensive and extensive research must be undertaken for this task. In the same way the liberative cultural elements in Asia should be reclaimed and employed in doing meaningful contextual theology for Asia.

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