spirit and healing in africa - University of the Free State

PART I. EXPLORING THE AFRICAN HORIZON: DISCOURSES
ON HEALTH
CHAPTER 1. THE FABRIC OF HEALTH IN AFRICA
The assertion that Reformed church and theology in Africa need to address the believers’ quest
for healing and well-being by developing adequate or corresponding theological views on health,
illness and healing, poses at least one big challenge to this research. After all, what is ‘health’
exactly? And what kind of expectations, experiences and perceptions do African believers have
pertaining to healing? This first chapter is an exploration of how ‘health’ can be understood so
that it will be clear which conceptualization(s) of health will be employed in this research. There
are essentially two parts to this exploration of health conceptualization: first a substantiation of
the use of health as a social construct (1.3), and second the acknowledgment of the existence of
multiple health discourses in the African context (1.4).
1.1 WHAT IS HEALTH?
Health issues are regularly addressed in everyday conversations, and every society is seriously
concerned with public health and healthcare. There is an abundance of adverts for body-care
products, books and magazines about fitness, and the media are filled with stories about health
such as obese children, healthcare budget, fundraising for the fight against cancer and diabetes
and HIV/AIDS in Africa. The pitfall of health as a prominent and universal concern is the
tendency to forget to specify what is meant by ‘health’, because it is assumed that everyone’s
understanding of the term ‘health’ is the same. However, the answer to the question ‘what is
health?’ is fully determined by one’s own perspective, where in the world one lives, by one’s
age, one’s gender and one’s financial status. In other words, a universal definition of health does
not exist.
1.1.1 Who’s definition of health
The lack of a universal definition of health is generally compensated for by the definition of the
World Health Organization (as formulated in the preamble of its constitution in 1948): “health is
a state of overall physical, mental, and social wellbeing that does not consist solely in the
absence of illness or infirmity” (World Health Organization 1992). The authoritative WHO
definition reveals the aim to move beyond defining ‘health’ as the mere absence of illness and
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