spirit and healing in africa - University of the Free State

The journey consists of two main stages. The first stage is a necessary step in order to gain an
understanding of the phenomenon of health. What do we mean when we talk about health, or
when we search for healing? How is health perceived in Southern Africa? The second stage is
the engagement of the findings of the first stage with Reformed pneumatological discourse in
order to find out whether productive avenues can be opened for Reformed theology in Southern
Africa.
Constituents of health
One important pillar of this research is the assumption that health is a multi-dimensional concept.
The definition of health is determined by internal rules and institutions that are meaningful to a
particular group in society. This means that how one perceives health is influenced by factors
like one’s experiences, tradition, gender, age, income and religion. Thus, one’s understanding of
health never develops in a vacuum, but is actually created by one’s social frame of reference.
Health is a social construct, developed within particular frames of understanding. This insight
provides the basis of this theological research on health and healing, because it implies an open
understanding of health. In other words, the understanding of health as a social construct requires
a basic sensitivity towards the open, non-exclusivist nature of health, which implies that the
meaning of health is always rooted in contextuality, subjectivity, discursive structures in society,
globalization processes, hybridity of health ideas, and the need for people to make sense of their
situation. These elements are the building blocks of any construction of health; they constitute
health.
An open understanding of health will allow church and theology to be continuously involved in
developing and articulating new interpretations of human illness, suffering, healing and health. If
theological reflection considers the fact that health ideas are always constructed in a particular
context on the basis of specific, subjective, hybrid, individual and collective experiences and
beliefs, then it means that health need not to be understood only in biomedical terms of
physicality, absence of disease and objectivity. Rather, understanding health as a social construct
automatically entails a broadening of the field for theological reflection on health, illness and
suffering.
Health discourses
Perceiving health as a social construct thus has a major implication for theological reflection. It
means that health is no longer defined by one health discourse, namely the scientific biomedical
discourse, but by multiple and different health discourses. In other words, church and theology
do not only need to relate to the biomedical understanding of health, but also to the other
275