spirit and healing in africa - University of the Free State

missionary discourse focuses not only on the motifs and practices of missionaries, but also on the
strategies and perceptions of Africans to whom the missionaries had to relate. This indigenous
perspective remains largely undeveloped compared to the available literature on missionary
responses, yet there is a growing body of academic contributions to be noted (see for example
Ranger 1975; Gray 1990; Elbourne 2002; Good 2004; Kalusa 2007). The missions’ new
accepted approach invites one to see that missionary medicine, with its power of the syringe, was
accepted as an important and lasting institution within the African healing discourse, while at the
same time missionary medicine was incorporated among the range of indigenous therapeutic
options available to Africans.
3.5 TRANSFORMATION
The discourse of missionary medicine seems to center around the notion of transformation.
When examining medical missions’ theories, motives, basic features, developments and
practices, then it transpires that the concept of transformation is omnipresent in this discourse.
The beliefs, thoughts and actions of medical missionaries and their supporting organizations
were clearly heavily influenced by a strong desire to make a contribution to the physical,
spiritual, moral, social and economic transformation of Africans. This permeation with the
concept of transformation leads to the proposition that transformation can be seen as
fundamental to the missionary medicine discourse.
Although the discourse on missionary medicine is heavily influenced by the idea of
transformation, this does not mean to say that there aren’t other influential concepts. The
identification of ‘transformation’ as typical for the missionary medicine discourse is just one
aspect, albeit the most profound. While following some of the strands of the missionary
medicine discourse, it will become clear that every component is interwoven with the notion of
transformation, regeneration, or conversion.
In the following paragraphs the notion of transformation as a crucial component of the
missionary discourse will be substantiated. I will argue that the concept of spiritual
transformation initiated missionary medicine, that the practice of bodily transformation provided
the key for missionary access to Africans, and that the desire for transformation will remain be at
the heart of missionary medicine, even when its claim of superiority is revisited and removed.
3.5.1 Spiritual transformation
The history of Christian medical missions cannot be separated from the broader modern
missionary movement, since medical involvement in missionary ventures was determined by
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