“Accepting Christ as ‘our Saviour’ always involves making
Him at home in our spiritual universe and in terms of our religious needs
and longings. So an understanding of Christ in relation to spirit-power
in the African context is not necessarily less accurate than in any other
perception of Jesus” (Bediako, ’90).
The spiritual and physical worlds converge in the healing encounter
in Africa. Christ stands in the middle of the crossroads. In many Christian
health ministries, however, we seem either not to see Him or are not quite
sure how to explain His presence. In either case our proclamation is incomplete.
Essential Proclamations Concerning Jesus the Healer
These proclamations must be done in the mother tongue of the people
by those who know their traditions and practices.
Proclamation One:
Christ fulfills the role
of the ancestors in healing.
Africans turn to their ancestors for healing. The ancestors share kinship
with the one who is sick and therefore are most likely to help in times
of need. Because they live as spirits, they are closer to the high god
and more able to influence him. Jesus, however, is the perfect mediator.
“We can find in Him all that we as Africans are looking for in our ancestors”
(Milingo, ’84). Though not related to Jesus by racial lineage, Africans
of any tribe share a common link to Jesus. They, like Jesus, bear the image
of the Creator God. They may choose to identify with an “adaptive past”
by accepting membership into the family of God. They then have two stories.
One is the story of their kinship group; the other is the story of the
Gospel, no longer a foreign teaching but a story that belongs to them.
By their choice, then, Jesus can become a member of their family who inhabits
the spiritual realm (Bediako, ’90). Unlike their genetic ancestors, however,
who may or may not have influence with higher spirits and divinities, Christ
is the perfect and sinless representation of His Father, the One High Creator
God. As the true Elder Brother, Jesus “displaces the mediational function
of the natural ‘spirit-fathers’”(Bediako, ’90).
Proclamation Two:
Jesus brings the distant
High God near.
Christ is the only member of the Godhead who has ever been sick, tired,
or injured—the only one who ever experienced the need for healing. Through
the mediation of Jesus, then, who suffered and is also one with the Creator
God, God must be moved by the suffering Christians who are Jesus’ brothers
and sisters.
Proclamation Three:
Jesus commands the power
to heal.
Jesus certainly demonstrated that power during His ministry in Palestine
and through His followers since then. He also empowers scientific medicine
as the Creator and Sustainer. These messages should be part of our proclamation.
Jesus also is the most powerful of the spirits and voids claims of earthly
authorities to divine power.
When Jesus entered the realm of the spirits after His death and resurrection,
He entered as Lord. Because He is one with God, He is the most powerful
of spirits, including those who were once human. “He is supreme over all
‘gods’ and authorities in the realm of the spirits. So He sums up in Himself
all their powers and cancels any terrorizing influence they might be assumed
to have upon us” (Bediako, ’90). To proclaim to people who are ill and
living in fear of spirits that they may be adopted into the lineage of
the living Christ who is the most powerful of the spirits is to promote
their healing.
Because of His victory over the cross and the power of death, Jesus
centers all power in Himself. He therefore “de-sacralizes all the powers,
institutions, and structures which rule human existence and history—family,
nation, social class, race, law, politics, economy, religion, culture,
tradition, custom, ancestors—stripping them all of any pretensions to ultimacy”
(Bediako, ’95). Traditionally, the power of leaders and traditional healers
among many peoples in Africa was rooted in their relationship to the ancestors.
Because there was no distinction between secular and sacred power, to oppose
a leader was to oppose all the spiritual powers sustaining the people or
nation. Because all power now is given to Jesus, this claim can no longer
stand. There are two main applications for health and healing.
First, on an individual level, traditional healers who derive their
power from their relationship to ancestral or ruling spirits are eclipsed
by the power of Jesus. Many traditional healers claim that their insight
for diagnosis and treatment is derived from their being “ensouled” by a
Spirit-Being with greater power and knowledge. Jesus, who commands all
power and who is One with His Father, is “ensouled” by God as an essential
characteristic of His Being. He therefore supersedes not only the role
of the ancestors and spirits but also the role of the healers who derive
their power from the ancestors (Pobee, ’79). Additionally, as further evidence
that Jesus is the Lord in the spirit realm, He has sent us His own spirit,
the Holy Spirit, who empowers all who belong to God’s family (Bediako,
’90). The message to the individual who is sick or oppressed is therefore
one of freedom from fear.
Second, all other human leaders command only the power delegated to
them by God. Because the power is delegated to them by One above them and
does not reside in them by the nature of their identity, they are accountable
to the laws and principles of the One who rules over them. Their word,
therefore, may be challenged on the basis of the principles of God’s Kingdom.
The Church, therefore, should challenge evil (even when it has the approbation
of political authority), serve as a prophetic voice, and represent the
welfare of those who have no power. Because many health problems are rooted
in patterns of social injustice, this proclamation frees the Church to
act on behalf of the powerless (Bediako, ’95)
Christ is the only member of the Godhead
who has ever been sick, tired, or injured –-
the only one who ever experienced
the need for healing.
At the beginning of World Relief’s maternal and child health project
in rural Cambodia, I challenged the nurse who leads the program to present
the concerns of the poor rural women and children to political leaders
and to those who exercise authority in the ministry of health. She had
embraced her role as a servant and teacher but had never considered the
power and authority that she commanded as a function of her position and
the access she had to those in power. Advocacy for the poor, powerless,
and marginal within a society needs to be done wisely and with sensitivity,
but Christian health workers have Christ’s authority to promote justice.
Proclamation Four:
Jesus Christ forgives sin
and bears our curse.
In the tradition of many African peoples, sin is the disruption of essential
relationships. Sin may result in sickness or misfortune. Being reconciled
to those who are estranged is therefore an essential part of the healing
process.
Any sin is a personal affront to the Creator God and to His Son, Jesus.
All sins therefore (even those sins that are finessed so that they appear
not to affect the covenant of family and community relationships) are personal
offenses and must be forgiven and reconciled. Because any sin is a personal
offense against God, we are all guilty before Him, and because of our disobedience,
He has pronounced a curse upon us. Apart from Jesus we are powerless to
escape God’s curse or to reconcile the sin.
Jesus has borne our sin and suffered the full weight of God’s curse
against us for the offense we have committed against Him. Through His mediation
and sacrifice, we can find forgiveness, reconciliation, and freedom from
the power of God’s curse. Sometimes, people are unable to be reconciled
to the person against whom they have sinned or to appease those who have
placed a curse upon them. It may be that the person has already died or
that the person (or his or her ancestral spirit) refuses to be reconciled
or to remove the curse. In those instances, Jesus pronounces God’s forgiveness
for the personal offense against Him, but also delivers from the power
of the person who refuses, or is no longer able, to be reconciled. In suffering
God’s curse for our disobedience and freeing us from it, Jesus also is
able to free us from the power of lesser curses. He can remove not only
the guilt, bitterness, and resentment that are the natural effects of unforgiven
sin but also the fear of curses. A person bound by these emotions cannot
be whole either spiritually or physically (Ram, ’95).
Chief who listens to the poor, humble King,
your words are precious jewels.
We don’t buy them, we don’t beg for them;
you give them to us freely!
Giver of good gifts, we are waiting for you,
And the sick are waiting for medicine.
O Jesus, you have swallowed death
and every kind of disease,
And have made us whole again.
(Kuma, ’81)
References:
Bediako, K. 1990. Jesus in African Culture: A Ghanaian Perspective. Asempa
Publishers: Accra, Ghana.
Bediako, K. 1995. “De-sacralization and Democratization: Some Theological
Reflections on Nation-building in Modern Africa.” Transformation 12: 5–11.
Kuma, A. 1981. Jesus of the Deep Forest: Prayers and Praises of Afua Kuma,
trans. Jon Kirby. Asempa Publishers: Accra, Ghana.
Milingo, E. 1984. The World In Between. Orbis Books: Maryknoll, NY.
Pobee, J. S. 1979. Toward an African Theology: Nashville, TN.
Ram, E. 1995. “Healing of the Spirit.” In Transforming Health: Christian
Approaches to Healing and Wholeness, ed. Eric Ram, 79–101. MARC Publications:
Monrovia, CA.
Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in “Health, Healing
and God's Kingdom,” c. 2000 by W. Meredith Long, Regnum Books Intl, Carlisle,
UK,
and the Billy Graham Center, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL, 60187.
For information about this publication or other resources
of the Billy Graham Center, e-mail emis@wheaton.edu
or visit the Web site: www.wheaton.edu/bgc/emis
