spirit and healing in africa - University of the Free State

eorientation of Christian theology. His publication Tegenwoordigheid van Geest (2006) is a
reflection on his explorations of the work and the charismata of the Holy Spirit. The basic thrust
of Van der Kooi’s pneumatology is that the Holy Spirit is active in the present, and that human
experiences of the Spirit’s presence are concrete and real (2006:19). The efficacies of the Spirit
can be experienced in relation to collective and societal situations (2006:19f; 2008:60-72), but
also in individual and personal matters such as, for example, in one’s desire for healing. Van der
Kooi’s pneumatology is based on biblical testimonies, which automatically leads to a plural
perspective on the work of the Spirit (2006:28-45; see also Welker 1994). While acknowledging
the plurality and diversity of the Spirit’s work in creation, Van der Kooi emphasizes that the
relational dimension of the efficacies of the Spirit is crucial (2006:41, 82, 86). The Spirit is the
One who relates the believer to the life giving and healing communion of God, and who
establishes relationships among people (2006:82f). According to Van der Kooi, healing
ministries should be seen in the light of the relational work of the Spirit, in which the aspect of
prayer is of utmost importance (2006:123). In the ministry of prayer and healing by the faith
community, relationality is a keyword, because the one who is ill, is brought (back again) into
relationship with God, with the faith community, and with oneself through the work of the Spirit.
Van der Kooi emphasizes that praying for the sick, and the earnest interpretation of the
provisional nature of God’s healing, are gifts bestowed upon the church that ought not to be
repressed (2006:123). Encouragement and prayer do not belong to the ministry of one particular
person or group, but ought to be embraced by the whole community of believers. Rituals such as
unction also need to be embedded in the community, because in absence of noticeable recovery,
the sick believer can be encouraged with words and signs of the faith tradition. Particularly in the
ministry of prayer and healing, it is important to be aware of the difference between resurrection
and consummation (2006:121). The Spirit’s efficacies are real, because we already live within
the scope of the Spirit (2006:77, 219), yet they are always to be seen as an advance, as
preliminary signs of what is yet to come. One of the major contributions of Van der Kooi’s
pneumatology is the retrieval of the present tense of God’s salvation within the doctrinal lines of
Reformed theology.
6.2.8 Heidelberg Catechism
After the overview of Reformed pneumatologies, another genre of theological reflection will
now be addressed: the confession. In his treatise on the Reformed confessions, Barth (2005:11f)
contends that one characteristic of Reformed confession is that there is no (imposed) unification
of the different confessions developed in the numerous Reformed churches, in contrast to other
traditions like the Lutheran. The universal validity of Reformed confession lies precisely in the
fact that there was (and still is) an ongoing quest for particular and local articulations of faith in
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