spirit and healing in africa - University of the Free State

concrete and material ways; we find our health and healing within the web of relations with God,
other human beings, and the environment. In other words, through the focus on the Spirit, any
theological reflection on human health refers to God’s life.
New articulations of the link between Spirit and healing can thus be developed on the basis of
relationality. In the African health discourse, relationships are synonymous with health and wellbeing;
in Reformed pneumatological discourse, there is a close link between the Spirit and
relationships (union with Christ, communion of believers), but there is no direct connection
between relationships and health. However, new articulations of the link between Spirit and
healing can be developed when the identification of relationships and health in the work of the
Spirit is emphasized: the Holy Spirit places humans in relationship with God and with one
another, and thus the Spirit gives life, healing and well-being. The existence of relationships and
the restoration of bonds can be seen as the efficacies of the Spirit, who aims at the well-being of
creation. When one is brought into relationships that produce vitality, forgiveness and restoration
of one’s identity, then that can be identified as healing. It is the work of the Holy Spirit.
Fragment 2 Spirit and transformation
The notion of transformation (a key motif of the missionary medicine discourse) draws the
attention to the complex nature of transformation. In the missionary medicine discourse,
transformation was located at the intersection of materiality and spirituality, which was displayed
by the close connection between the conversion of the soul and the healing of the body. The
missionary understanding of transformation draws the attention to the meaning of transformation
in relation to God and healing. The complex nature of transformation in Reformed pneumatology
is rooted in the spiritual union with Christ (forensic understanding of salvation) and in the
metaphorical language of transformation. The metaphor of adoption is familiar in Reformed
pneumatological thought, and a focus on the Spirit of adoption with her disruptive work and her
counter-cultural charismata allows for an understanding of healing as transformation that
includes both body and soul. The Spirit of God draws humans into processes of transformation
which aim at the establishing of justice, mercy and knowledge of God in this reality. It means
that the transforming work of the Spirit does not only cause change in the spiritual life of the
believer, but also that the Spirit claims any dimension of the believer’s life. Being drawn into
union with Christ through the Spirit thus means that body, soul, relationships, family,
environment, occupation and any other part of human life are placed in the realm of the
disorienting Spirit. The Spirit of God works in countercultural and disorienting ways in order to
re-orient concrete life according to God’s love and justice. This kind of all-embracing
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