spirit and healing in africa - University of the Free State

full of diseases. Throughout the colonial era, (medical) missionaries reported on how primitive
Africa was and emphasized that the continent “was inhabited by backward, pagan peoples who
suffered from inherent illness and a host of indigenous, pathological evils and defects” (Good
2004:43). The missionaries understood their perspective as justified on biblical grounds: all the
diseases and disabilities that are mentioned in the New Testament were abundantly present in
Africa (Hardiman 2006:26). And, as far as the missionaries and their supporters were concerned,
the biblical justification also covered the presence of the (medical) missionaries in Africa: the
ignorant inhabitants of dark Africa were in need of civilization and liberation of the evil forces
that captivated many people, for “the diseases of Africa stood for larger spiritual ills, the sick
bodies of Africans for the sickness of their souls” (Vaughan 1991:73). The illness
representations, upheld by most missionaries, revealed that physical misery was understood to be
integrated with moral, spiritual and social deficiencies (the emphasis may have shifted from time
to time), and that the absence of Christianity would lead to social conditions of depravity. In her
study on healing in the history of Christianity, Amanda Porterfield asserts that modern
assumptions about reality colored the missionaries’ conceptions of Christianity and Christian
healing, and that they allied them with the forces of Westernization. She says that Western
missionaries “often emphasized Christianity’s healing of social ills, whatever they thought about
miraculous cures of physical illness. Thus, for most Western missionaries, Christian healing
meant promoting social peace, softening the blows of Western military, political, and economic
advance, challenging the worst brutalities of colonialism, and enabling personal responsibility,
education, good health, and better standards of living” (2005:122).
The projection of Western illness etiologies on Africa created an antithesis, and this antithesis
became a crucial part of missionary medicine (cf. Vaughan 1991:66f; Landau 1996:265; Good
2004:28; Porterfield 2005:121f). There were exceptions, of course, but most medical
practitioners and other missionaries started to define Christian medicine on the basis of the
constructed characteristics of its African competitor. Substantiated by medical insights and
supported by biblical interpretations, ‘African medicine’ was portrayed as everything opposed to
the medical knowledge, skills and practices that were part of the missionary frame of mind.
Africa stood for everything that was considered primitive, ignorant, pagan, mysterious or dark,
cruel, evil and associated with witchcraft, while the Western World was depicted as modern,
sensible, Christian, well-developed, rational, clean, illuminating, good and exemplary. The sharp
boundaries between the Christian and indigenous religions often became apparent when
missionaries categorized African rites as superstition. Even the renowned medical missionary
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) is known for his antithetical attitude regarding indigenous
traditions (cf. Porterfield 2005:121). The antithesis developed into a struggle that in essence
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