spirit and healing in africa - University of the Free State

provided the basis for a re-visioning, because it drew attention to Reformed motifs that could be
retrieved and redefined in the light of healing. Reformed pneumatology can be reconsidered by
articulating the link between Spirit and healing through the identification of relationships and
health, through disorienting and counter-cultural transformation, through the quality of
vulnerable life, and through paradoxical power. These new articulations also imply a revision of
the agency of the Spirit, because through her healing work She creates our relationships and
places us within them; She is effectively at work within us (spirit, soul, body), in our practices, in
society; She beautifies our vulnerability; and She makes the impossible possible.
Contribution to African Reformed theology
This research can be seen as a relevant contribution to African Reformed theology, because it
recognizes the importance of the theme of healing for Reformed theology; it broadens the
understanding of healing by describing four major health discourses in Southern Africa, and by
including multiple contextual motifs of health; it focuses on the complex link between Spirit and
healing; it identifies a matrix of Reformed pneumatology; and it offers four pneumatological
fragments on healing. The contextual, interdisciplinary, and constructive elements in this
research on healing and pneumatology make a meaningful contribution to Reformed theological
discourse in Southern Africa.
Final conclusion
In this research, multi-layered understandings of health were engaged with Reformed
pneumatological discourse. The identification of four health motifs, featuring prominently in
African health discourses, with the work of the Holy Spirit generated four pneumatological
fragments on healing. These fragments can be understood as new articulations of the link
between Spirit and healing, but they do not offer a comprehensive approach to the problem
complex of Spirit and healing. They are explorative constructions, and part of the open-ended
adventure of intimating the work of the Spirit in our life.
The new articulations of the link between Spirit and healing (on the basis of important notions of
health) allow for a positive evaluation of my hypothesis. The pneumatological exploration,
sensitive to multi-layered understandings of health, opened productive avenues for Reformed
theology in Southern Africa. The unlocking of a Reformed pneumatological reflection on healing
was achieved by perceiving health as a social construct, by considering current health discourses
in Africa, and by constructing an encounter between African health discourses and Reformed
pneumatological discourse, which is an open discourse and sensitive to contextuality. The focus
281