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CHAPTER FOUR

DIMENSIONS OF CHRISTIAN HEALING AND MINISTRY

Christians and Healing Emphasis

Having examined the importance of health and well-being to the African and the role of the medicine-man in African societies, focus in this section will be beamed on the concept of health and current healing practices in some Christians, their historical antecedents and factors responsible for this.

Many of the Christians as stated above make healing as a cardinal objective, and most often promote this above other aspects of the gospel. This, as will be seen later, was independent of experiences of Pentecostalism and faith healing that began in the early part of last century that had Azusa Street event as its watershed.^[1] Anderson argues that the newer Pentecostal and charismatic churches dotting the African religious landscape are a continuation of the Holy Spirit movements and the so- called ‗prophet-healing‘and ‗spiritual churches‘ of the Christians. According to him, the distinctiveness about these churches is that they have in most cases ‗…responded to the existential needs of African worldview. They have all offered personal encounters with God through the power of the Spirit, healing from sickness, and deliverance from evil in its entire manifestations, spiritual, social and structural. ‘³⁹ Three factors may account for these practices. These are African spirituality and world view, modern trend in global Pentecostalism and biblical antecedents particularly in the New Testament.

 

The thrust of the teachings and practices of Christians is often focused on well-being of the individual as evident in radiant and healthy living; having abundance of financial and material possessions, success in life, interpreted as wealth and achievement in chosen endeavours, dominion of one‘s environment, subduing perceived enemies and agents of evil forces; and generally having a good life. These are a derivative of African culture and traditional religion ‘s concept of well-being. There is an affinity between African concept of health and wellbeing and that of the Semitic culture of the Bible. Richard Burgess affirms that ‗Nigerian Pentecostals also have a fondness for narrative texts and find particular affinities between the biblical world and their own. This leads to a preference for the Old Testament and the narrative portions of the New Testament, especially the Gospels and the Book of Acts. Old Testament characters, such as Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Hannah and Ruth, are especially popular as illustrations of the fruits of God‘s blessings and miraculous intervention.‘^[2] Emphasis mostly is on appropriating power to overcome existential needs and negative forces in the environment.  In this regard, many in the Christians have assimilated the Pentecostal dominion theology, that of triumphant disposition over evil, sickness, poverty and all that makes life unbearable.

 

Whatever deprives the individual from wholesome living is considered as a spiritual sickness or ‗attack ‘that has to be addressed in prayers and deliverance sessions. As Olusegun Fakoya stated:

Many Nigerians, both rich and poor, run after pastors for spiritual protection from known and imaginary enemies. This is typical African syndrome which education has failed to influence. The bottom line is wholesale embrace and exploitation of the people’s fear by modern-day Pentecostalism and hence the multitudes of crusades and revivals to free adherents from the yoke of witchcraft and sorceries.^[3]

 

In his critique of the Pentecostal movement and its impact on the Christians, Fakoya noted that there are certain distinct features or elements that are characteristic of these churches, which to a large extent derive ‗…heavily from its American influence and amply modified by its sensitivity to African culture, temperament and inherent materialistic expectations from whichever God is worshipped.‘^[4] The European missionaries came with a brand of Christianity that focused on individual sin and piety. Africans sought for a form of

Christianity that was both relevant in meeting their existential needs and resonated with their cultural world view. This, they found in their local form of home grown Christianity that is not only focused on eternal bliss in the life after as taught by the missionaries, but one that also seeks an appropriation of temporal blessings in the present life too.  Fakoya speaks of common features of this brand of Christianity in Nigeria.  According to him, one of the features is the preaching of prosperity messages and another is healing. He distinguishes two types of healing practices in these churches. There are those he describes as ‗General practitioners: those who can heal all diseases without exception. ‘ The second category of miracle healers includes those that Fakoya calls ‗Specialists‘ referring to churches that emphasize exorcism. The Mountain of Fire and Miracles Church grew over the years because of its emphasis on prayer, deliverance (exorcism) and healing, as noted in the previous chapter.

 

Early Missionary thrust and the quest for healing    

The mission churches were established in the 19^th century and subsequently concerned themselves with the spread of the Christian faith, establishment of schools, hospitals, vocational training centers etc. as noted previously. Schools and infirmaries were considered by the missionaries as the churches‘strong arms of evangelism. Hospitals and infirmaries created supposedly better alternatives to traditional healing practices. The missionaries sometimes vilified the local medicine-men labelling them as witch-doctors and diabolists because of their resort to divination and mediums for diagnosis of ailments. The missionaries were not different from the colonialists in their approach to the health of the indigenes because they desired a return for their free health scheme. The colonialists wanted an active workforce to execute their interests of procuring raw materials for their home industries. Health schemes in this era were self-serving as they were geared towards the preservation of colonial interests. ‗The creation of wealth in the colonies was dominated by the workforce. Infirmaries and hospitals, vaccination programmes and hygiene were all integrated into a comprehensive system of domination. The development of the colonies was nothing but the creation and maintenance of the work tools that were the peasants. ‘^[5] The missionaries were sometimes seen as collaborators with the colonial authorities because some of them were accused of using their medical practice as a means of conversion to Christianity, as ‗…conversion wrought by an evangelization bound up with medical aid did not fail to arouse diffidence in certain African milieus. In the colonial context, medicine and mission seemed to respond to one and the same purpose.‘^[6]

 

For the missionaries who came from cultures where science was a determinant of what is to be believed in a post-enlightenment era, faith healing and the miraculous were consigned to the era of the primitive past, and not the modern times of scientific breakthroughs. The churches of Europe and America at this time were slowly emerging from a period in which many of their teachings and dogmas were discredited as simplistic, unscientific and merely myths that do not have room in modern contemplations. Theologians were quick to reformulate the Christian faith to be more fitting to contemporary views then and to discard that which is considered offensive or simply incredulous. Therefore, existence of miracles, healings and exorcism were denied or were not accorded their proper place in catechism of the heathen converts in Nigeria. But the converts read the Bible, appropriated biblical texts for their context and sought for a living faith that will address issues in their environment. The quest for biblical Christianity was a factor that would give rise to the Christians in later years. According to Ogbu Kalu

A significant aspect of the nineteenth century was that as missionaries sowed the seed of the gospel, Africans appropriated it from a primal, charismatic world-view and read the translated scriptures in that light. Indigenous agencies recovered the spiritual resources of the gospel and challenged missionary Christianity to be fully biblical. This set the stage for the process that followed the World Wars. New forces such as the implosion of the state challenged the heritage of African Christianity; and the collapse of the dictatorial states and attendant probed the tensile strength of the church‘s stewardship charismatic and Pentecostal spirituality resurfaced to provide the energy for growth and sustainability in the midst of hostile circumstances.^[7]

 

Beside this, the missionaries failed in certain regards because of their inability to connect with the natives on the religious plain. Failure to dialogue invariably led to failure to understand the people‘s worldview and expectations from religion. Ilogu cited instances of failure in appreciating the people‘s culture by the missionaries which led to lost opportunities in contextualization and firmly establishing Christianity in Ibo land in Nigeria. He recounted the smallpox epidemic episode that affected Onitsha between1872 and 1873, which killed king Ediari and his prince-son. Many attempts of the Ibo native-medicine diviner priests (dibia) to avert the epidemic failed and many lost faith in their local gods and religion. Many out of desperation turned to the church for help. A local soothsayer told the people that he had seen a vision that unless the people listened to the missionaries and went to their church, the whole of Onitsha would be wiped out by the small-pox epidemic. This caused virtually everyone in the town to troop to the Church for salvation from the epidemic. This, according to Ilogu, was an opportunity for the missionaries to demonstrate the healing power of the Gospel message, teaching them about the Christian doctrine of wholeness of man, and man‘s healing through salvation in Jesus both in his body, soul and mind.  Crowther (the missionary) felt otherwise, ‗…that the success of the evangelistic work in Onitsha should not depend on such smallpox and the soothsayer‘s vision.‘^[8] The people left disappointed as their hopes of receiving succour from the ravaging epidemic threatening the entire community were dashed. African Church historians felt that that was a lost opportunity both to win converts among the Ibo indigenes and assure them of the salvific power of the Gospel. Ilogu would comment later of this incident that ‗If he (Crowther) and the missionaries after him knew the people‘s emphasis on harmony between man, community and cosmos as the background to health and well being, they would have capitalized on it to show how Jesus Christ is God‘s means of creating harmony between Himself, men and nature. Even now the orthodox Churches in Iboland do not capitalize on it; it is only the Pentecostals and the prayer-healing Annangland^[9] churches who do so.‘^[10]

 

This account shows the failure of the missionaries to fully comprehend African traditional worldview and by implication presents one of the reasons behind the growth and successes of the Pentecostal and CHRISTIANS, the fact that they understand the African‘s nuances and what appeals to him or her especially in time of crises or deprivation. Adamo as stated in the previous chapter decried the type of Christianity introduced into Africa, which was devoid of power to meet existential needs in the African context. He reasoned that the missionaries taught African Christians to discard these indigenous ways of handling problems without offering any concrete substitute, except the Bible.  He said that charms, medicine, incantations, divination, sacrifices, and other cultural ways of protecting, healing and liberating ourselves from the evil powers that fill the African environment were hurriedly discarded in the name of Christianity. Yet Africans were not taught how to use that Bible as a means of protecting, healing and solving daily problems. It took the ingenuity of African converts in the mission churches that read and interpreted the bible through another eye or perspective to make the scripture fitting to the African context and its realities. The Bible was made to speak to concrete needs in the African cultural context.  This was the thrust of the Christians theological emphasis as they discovered in the Old and New Testament experiences that are similar to their African cultural context, especially the manifestation of power and the triumph of good over evil through the intervention of the all powerful God. They saw the demonstration of power in the Old Testament narratives like the crossing of the red sea and the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, the power filled Samson and his triumph over the Philistines, David and Goliath, Elijah and the contest at Mt. Carmel, Jesus victory over Satan and healing of the infirmed in many New Testament narratives. This resonated with what Africans believe is inherent in religion, the intervention of the powerful gods in times of crises. The Old Testament was particular appealing to the Christians especially the prophethealing churches. In Nigeria, many of the Annangland churches sought to pattern their religiosity and leadership after the manner of Old Testament prophets who were filled with the Spirit of God and had power to perform miracles and healings.

[1] A. H. Anderson, ‗The Newer Pentecostal and Charismatic churches: The Shape of Future Christianity in Africa?‘ PNEUMA: The Journal of the Society of Pentecostal Studies, 24/2, 2002,1-18. ³⁹ Allan H. Anderson, ‗The Newer Pentecostal and Charismatic churches‘,2.

[2] Richard Burgess, ‗Nigerian Pentecostal Theology in a Global Perspective,‘ 29-63.

[3] O. Fakoya, ‗The Gospel of Materialism-Nigerian Pentecostalism and Hypocrisy‘, (Part 3), http//www.Nigerians in America, Religion and Philosophy. 18/9/2008, accessed on 10/4/2009.

[4] O. Fakoya, ‗The Gospel of Materialism-Nigerian Pentecostalism and hypocrisy,‘ Part 3.

[5] C. Kolie, ‗Jesus as Healer?‘ 139.

[6] C. Kolie, ‗Jesus as Healer?‘ 140.

[7] O. Kalu, ‗Christianity in Africa,‘ in J. Bowden(ed) Encyclopedia of Christianity, New York:

[8] E.C.O Ilogu, Christian Ethics in African Background, A study of the Interaction of Christianity and the Ibo Culture, Leiden: E.J Brill Ltd., 1972,.86.

[9] Aladura is a Yoruba word which means a praying people.

[10] E.C.O Ilogu, Christian Ethics in African Background, A study of the Interaction of Christianity and the Ibo culture, 87.