spirit and healing in africa - University of the Free State

The implication of God’s relational love touching all aspects of human life is that healing then
refers to any kind of healing. Any relation, situation, or person is to be included in the context of
the healing and relational communion of the Father, the Son and the Spirit. This explicitly means
that a pneumatological vocabulary involves much more than just the themes of physical healing,
immediate healing, or objective healing. In this sense, one could say that a pneumatological
orientation undermines the familiarity of the prevailing health conceptualizations, and creates
room for more biblical notions of healing: a spiritual bond with God, the interplay of individual
and communal aspects, the renewal of relationships. Even at this point, a parallel with the
African health discourse can be noted: even though the need for healing often transpires in the
body, the actual healing entails much more than the (objective) recovery of physical functions.
Basically it is about the rebuilding of one’s identity in the presence of the community. In African
health discourse, health is not understood as the return to a situation as it was before the illness
occurred, but as a communal process that leads the patient through the suffering, through the
mending of relationships, towards healing. Healing consequentially involves changed relational
patterns and the renewed identity of the patient. In pneumatological discourse, the same aspects
occur in the sense that the Spirit is the healing agent who draws attention to the meaning of
relationships as bearers of shalom and well-being. Through these relationships, people are
invited to participate in Trinitarian life, in the shalom and the well-being that belongs to God.
These relationships are the bonds that renew the meaning of life and restore health in the widest
sense of the word. Since the Trinitarian God is the giver of life and the source of well-being,
there is no dimension that cannot be reached by the ecstatic Spirit. Healing, however, does not
mean the return to a particular state of physical fitness; instead, it refers to the changes in
relational patterns and to the experience of participating in Trinitarian relational life. The identity
of the believer is renewed and restored by the Spirit through the life-giving bonds.
As an example of healing as a relational category, we return to the fictitious character of Grace
Banda, who was first introduced in the Introduction of this thesis. A few years ago, Grace’s
husband passed away. After the funeral rites, she faced the challenge of picking up the pieces of
her life. She struggled with her in-law family, like most African women who are widowed. The
brothers and sisters of her late husband insinuated that she was responsible for his death, and
that she was after his money and property. She became exposed to serious intimidation by her inlaws,
who threatened to throw her and the children out of the house. While grieving for her
husband, Grace Banda experienced life without any social safety net. She was stripped of her
dignity, was made to feel vulnerable and was marginalized. Later she would say that the lack of
social life and protection was like a disease. Grace Banda experienced the social death of an
African widow. She struggled for months, trying to keep her head up yet knowing that she was
218