Zionism and Faith-Healing in Rhodesia: Aspects of African Independent Churches
... Hesitancy has also been viewed as a result of racial separation under White Rule when indigenous Africans had none or at the best limited access to hospitals (Andersson 1958;Sundkler 1961). Daneel (1970) noted along the same lines of this argument that nearly 50% of members joined the Apostolic Church when they were sick, and that the healing issue is the strongest influence drawing people to the Church rather than faith (Daneel 1970). Maguranyanga (2011) have noted that Apostolic communities are made of different sects with varying degrees of religious conservatism, and as a result they do not have a uniform health seeking behavior or attitude toward immunization (Gresson et al. 1999;Maguranyanga 2011). ...
... Hesitancy has also been viewed as a result of racial separation under White Rule when indigenous Africans had none or at the best limited access to hospitals (Andersson 1958;Sundkler 1961). Daneel (1970) noted along the same lines of this argument that nearly 50% of members joined the Apostolic Church when they were sick, and that the healing issue is the strongest influence drawing people to the Church rather than faith (Daneel 1970). Maguranyanga (2011) have noted that Apostolic communities are made of different sects with varying degrees of religious conservatism, and as a result they do not have a uniform health seeking behavior or attitude toward immunization (Gresson et al. 1999;Maguranyanga 2011). ...
... Apostolic parents and caregivers are generally fearful of sanctions from religious leaders if they vaccinate children under their care, and therefore rely on prayers. Their reliance is reinforced by what Daneel (1970) describes as ''the mystical world in which they live and according to which faith healing is strongly favored over modern medicine because of the widely accepted African belief in the personal causation of all ailments and misfortunes-such personal forces being the neglected family spirits, malignant alien spirits, witches or sorcerers'' (Daneel 1970). ...
Vaccine hesitancy or lack of confidence in vaccines is considered a threat to the success of vaccination programs. The rise and spread of measles outbreaks in southern Africa in 2009–2010 were linked to objections among Apostolic Church members, estimated at about 3.5 million in Zimbabwe as of 2014. To inform planning of interventions for a measles–rubella vaccination campaign, we conducted an assessment of the factors contributing to vaccine hesitancy using data from various stakeholders. Among nine districts in three regions of Zimbabwe, we collected data on religious attitudes toward, and perceptions of, vaccines through focus group discussions with health workers serving Apostolic communities and members of the National Expanded Programme on Immunization; semi-structured interviews with religious leaders; and open-ended questions in structured interviews with Apostolic parents/caregivers. Poor knowledge of vaccines, lack of understanding and appreciation of the effectiveness of vaccinations, religious teachings that emphasize prayers over the use of medicine, lack of privacy in a religiously controlled community, and low levels of education were found to be the main factors contributing to vaccine hesitancy among key community members and leaders. Accepting vaccination in public is a risk of sanctions. Poor knowledge of vaccines is a major factor of hesitancy which is reinforced by religious teachings on the power of prayers as alternatives. Because parents/caregivers perceive vaccines as dangerous for their children and believe they can cause death or disease, members of the Apostolic Church have more confidence in alternative methods such as use of holy water and prayers to treat diseases. Under these circumstances, it is important to debunk the myths about the power of holy water on the one hand and disseminate positive information of the efficacy of vaccines on the other hand in order to reduce hesitancy. Education about vaccines and vaccination in conjunction with government intervention, for example, through the use of social distancing policies can provide a framework for reducing hesitancy and increasing demand for vaccination.
... As early as the 1970s, scholars such as Daneel 15 highlighted that certain African Independent Churches were popular because they were involved in healing. Such an activity attracted many Africans because it was in line with traditional religion 15 . ...
... Members of the Zion Church still refused the vaccination of their children; and some of these children had to be vaccinated at gun point. The use of medicines by Zionists is not allowed and visits to the hospital for medication are considered a lapse in the spiritual life 15 ; such members are excommunicated. In 2010, the outbreak of measles in Malawi showed that there are certain population groups, for example, members of the Zion Church, who do not access health services including immunization [7][8][9] . ...
The study upon which this paper is based was undertaken to understand users' and non-users' perceptions concerning facilitators and barriers to equitable and universal access to health care in resource-poor countries such as Malawi. In this study, non-users of health services were defined as people who were not in need of health services or those who had stopped using them due to significant barriers.
A total of 80 interviews with non-users of health services were conducted in Rumphi, Ntchisi, Phalombe and Blantyre Districts of Malawi. Interviews focused on why informants were not using formal health services at the time of data collection. In order to identify non-users, snowballing was used health surveillance assistants, village headmen and community members also helped. One focus group discussion was also conducted with non-users of health services who were members of the Zion Church.
Informants described themselves as non-users of health services due to several reasons: cost of health services; long distances to health facilities; poor attitude of health workers; belief in the effectiveness of traditional medicines; old age and their failure to walk. Others were non-users due to their disability; hence they could not walk over long distances or could not communicate effectively with health providers. Some of these non-users were complete non-users, namely members of the Zion Church and those who believed in traditional medicine, and they stated that nothing could be done to transform them into users of health services. Other non-users stated that they could become users if their challenges were addressed e.g. for those who were non-users of health services due to poor attitudes of health workers, they stated that if these health workers were transferred they would be able to access health services.
Public health education targeting both health workers and non-users, ensuring a functional outreach program and addressing other health system challenges such as shortage of drugs and human resources would assist in transforming non-users into users of health services.
... Unlike the diagnosis regimen of Western medical doctors-which constitutes a complete break from the African approach to handling illness-the prophet-healer functions in ways that are familiar with the people. Daneel (1970) explains more: ...
The challenges that Western-trained medical missionaries and Christian doctors face is that their African patients, some of whom may be Christians, do consult all the healers in the parallel medical systems freely and almost simultaneously, the result of which may be complications, and possibly mental confusion, due to medications from different sources being taken at the same time without any liaison between doctors and healers.
... This has also been reported in Zimbabwe and in South Africa. 26 The fundamental difference with the diviners in the traditional African context is that these divine with the help of the ancestral and other spirits. 27 It is also not everyone who can become a prophet or diviner: it is the Holy Spirit which calls prophets to embark on healing of the sick, 28 as was the case with Prophet who manned the Zion Church clinic that was visited during this study. ...
... For this reason, they located a great degree of continuity not only with historical Christianity but also with African cultures and beliefs, or what became glossed as "African Traditional Religion" (Peterson and Walhof 2002). In this sense, Christianity was often described as a vehicle of survivals, enabling some practices, structures, and beliefs to endure amidst the disintegrative onslaught of Euro-Western colonialism and postcolonialism (Daneel 1970;Dube 1999;Kibira 1974, chp. 1). ...
It is our goal in this special issue on “Religious Conversion in Africa” to examine the limitations of a long-standing bias toward Christianity with respect to the study of “conversion.” Furthermore, we want to use this issue to prime other scholarly approaches to cultural change on the continent, beginning as early as the medieval period, including the colonial and early postcolonial eras, and extending to the contemporary. There are several reasons for making these interventions. One is the emergence of the anthropology of Christianity as a scholarly literature and sub-discipline. This literature has often focused on issues of religious change in relation to its own predilection for charismatic and Pentecostal expressions of Christianity and the distinct characteristics of cultural discontinuity within those communities. Another reason for this special issue on religious “conversion” in Africa is the relative lack of studies that engage with religious change beyond Pentecostal, charismatic, and evangelical Protestant contexts. As such, studies on the “conversion” of Ahmadi in West Africa, medieval Ethiopian women, Mormons in twentieth-century southeastern Nigeria, and Orthodox Christians in Uganda are included, as is a fascinating case of what it means to “trod the path” of Rastafari in Ghana. Taken together, these contributions suggest new and important paths forward with respect to “conversion,” including critiquing and perhaps even discarding the term in certain contexts. Ultimately, we want these articles to illuminate the many ways that Africans across the continent have engaged (and continue to engage) with beliefs, practices, ideas, and communities—including the changes they make in their own lives and in the lives of those communities.
... Pentecostal preachers in South Africa quickly embraced divine healing, which became a distinctive feature of the South African movement (Maxwell 1999:247-250). This, and the adoption of certain Pentecostal features within aics at the time, made it hard to draw clear distinctions between Pentecostal churches and aics in South Africa (Daneel 1970;Sundkler 1961). a team prayer with many sports stars attributing their success to the intervention of God or Jesus. ...
... In the African context, people who are ill either turn to academic medicine (biomedicine), traditional African healing or the church for help, and Christians are not averse to this practice. In some instances dual treatment (Freeman & Motsei 1992:1185 or triple treatment regularly take place, as illustrated by this quotation from Daneel (1970): ...
There are different streams of healing praxis in Africa today, namely African traditional
healing, biomedical healing and spiritual healing (which includes the more recent ‘touch your
TV screen’ healing method) among others. These streams offer contemporary African people
diverse alternatives with regard to healing. As much as the hegemony of Western biomedicine,
as endorsed by missionaries in the past, can no longer serve as a norm in the area of healing,
we can also not use the African traditional healing methods and or any other alternative
presented to Africa without discernment. This suggests therefore that Reformed mission
ecclesiology and missionary practitioners should critically engage the African context,
worldview and culture on the matter of healing. It should also engage other forms of spiritual
healing methods on offer in the African soil.
... This, Daneel notes, is 'yet another attempt to introduce Christian notions into the deeper recesses of traditional beliefs ' (1977:192). The case studies presented by Daneel (1970) show that the prophetic role of healing and dealing with evil powers is really a pulling factor. When accompanying the prophet and the n'anga, 'while the n'anga seeks a solution which accedes to the conditions of the spirits, the prophetic therapy bases itself on a belief in the Christian God, which surpasses all other powers ' (1970:43). ...
This article reviews select principal literature on traditional religion and medical practices in Zimbabwe with a view to demonstrating how this subject has been dealt with through the contributions of scholars from a variety of disciplines. In so doing, it paves the way for phenomenol-ogy, which is the alternative approach used in this study. The article explores the relationship between anthropology and sociology as used by previous scholars to study religion and medicine in the context of the Shona people in Zimbabwe on the one hand, and phenomenology on the other. Résumé Cet article fait une relecture de la littérature principale sur la religion traditionnelle et les pratiques médicales au Zimbabwe. Ceci, dans l'optique de démontrer la façon dont ce sujet a été abordé dans différentes disciplines académiques. Cet article jette les bases d'une approche alternative : la phénoménologie. En quoi faisant ? En explorant la relation entre l'anthropologie et la sociologie telles qu'utilisées par les chercheurs pour l'étude de la religion et de la médecine dans le contexte des Shona au Zimbabwe d'une part, et de la phénoménologie d'autre part.
... Although Pentecostal churches, such as the Assemblies of God or the Apostolic Church, played a role in the African Christian scene since the 1920s, scholars did not draw a strong distinction between these churches and AICs until around 1990. Southern African AICs especially developed typical Pentecostal features such as glossolalia (Daneel 1970, Sundkler 1961 and scholars took them as paradigmatic of African Pentecostalism (Cox 1994a,b). At the same time, many AICs straddled the typological divide and recast themselves as Pentecostal churches (Meyer 1999, Maxwell 2001, Ukah 2003a. ...
Taking as a point of departure Fernandez's survey (1978), this review seeks to show how research on African Independent Churches (AICs) has been recon-figured by new approaches to the anthropology of Christianity in Africa, in general, and the recent salient popularity of Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches (PCCs) in par-ticular. If the adjectives "African" and "Independent" were once employed as markers of authentic, indigenous interpretations of Christianity, these terms proved to be in-creasingly problematic to capture the rise, spread, and phenomenal appeal of PCCs in Africa. Identifying three discursive frames—Christianity and "traditional religion," Africa and "the wider world," religion and politics—which organize(d) research on AICs and PCCs in the course of the past 25 years, this chapter critically reviews dis-cussions about "Africanization," globalization and modernity, and the role of religion in the public sphere in postcolonial African societies.
Women have become a very crucial subject of study in dynamic societies like Zimbabwe where multiple gender tasking is common. Their conventional roles in social institutions have drastically changed owing to their changing environmental circumstances. In religious institutions, such as the Zion Christian Church (ZCC), women have mutated into a complex class whose attributes are no longer generalizable for they have confronted the multiple bottlenecks imposed by patriarchal designs to register themselves as critical players in the church despite the subversion by their male counterparts. Cognisant of the fact that the ZCC commands such a huge following in Zimbabwe, especially among the female folk, this chapter seeks to present a historical exposition on the gender dynamics in this church. In terms of theoretical framework, the chapter follows an interdisciplinary approach. It draws insights from the social history approach and intersectionality. The social history approach is a radical approach that writes history from the perception of the ordinary people, paying attention to the peculiarities of time and space while essentializing the experiences of the marginalized, legitimizing them as historical agents (Stearns, 2009). Intersectionality is the complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism and classism) combine, overlap or intersect, especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups (Crenshaw, 1989).KeywordsMasvohwaniRuwadzanoSunganoTabheroZion Christian Church (ZCC)
In re-visiting issues of empire and African Christianity, this article sought to provide a missiological deconstruction of empire and Christianity in Africa, and to draw some missiological lessons that can help shape the agenda of Christianity in Africa moving to the future. Using a liberating praxis of engagement with available literature, this article concluded that the relationship between empire and Christianity is not only historical, but a present reality - it can be traced back from early Christianity, Roman Empire, colonial and imperial era, to post-colonial and independent/democratic Africa. The article discovered that while the empire dominates and enslaves, Christianity in Africa could be liberated to liberate the rest of the world from the stronghold of the empire. Optics - in the form of various hermeneutic lenses - should be used to unmask the empire for what/who it is. The theology of ubuntu and other life-affirming African theologies should be used as liberating tools, not only from the empire but also from the myth that Christianity is a Western religion.
Dube examines smallpox epidemics and control measures in this chapter. He shows how the border continued to be an obstacle to the implementation of effective regional public health policy. Dube shows how colonial governments deprived members of African Independent Churches of their right to congregate for religious purposes.
The contributors to Affective Trajectories examine the mutual and highly complex entwinements between religion and affect in urban Africa in the early twenty-first century. Drawing on ethnographic research throughout the continent and in African diasporic communities abroad, they trace the myriad ways religious ideas, practices, and materialities interact with affect to configure life in urban spaces. Whether examining the affective force of the built urban environment or how religious practices contribute to new forms of attachment, identification, and place-making, they illustrate the force of affect as it is shaped by temporality and spatiality in the religious lives of individuals and communities. Among other topics, they explore Masowe Apostolic Christianity in relation to experiences of displacement in Harare, Zimbabwe; Muslim identity, belonging, and the global ummah in Ghana; crime, emotions, and conversion to neo-Pentecostalism in Cape Town; and spiritual cleansing in a Congolese branch of a Japanese religious movement. In so doing, the contributors demonstrate how the social and material living conditions of African cities generate diverse affective forms of religious experiences in ways that foster both localized and transnational paths of emotional knowledge.
The contributors to Affective Trajectories examine the mutual and highly complex entwinements between religion and affect in urban Africa in the early twenty-first century. Drawing on ethnographic research throughout the continent and in African diasporic communities abroad, they trace the myriad ways religious ideas, practices, and materialities interact with affect to configure life in urban spaces. Whether examining the affective force of the built urban environment or how religious practices contribute to new forms of attachment, identification, and place-making, they illustrate the force of affect as it is shaped by temporality and spatiality in the religious lives of individuals and communities. Among other topics, they explore Masowe Apostolic Christianity in relation to experiences of displacement in Harare, Zimbabwe; Muslim identity, belonging, and the global ummah in Ghana; crime, emotions, and conversion to neo-Pentecostalism in Cape Town; and spiritual cleansing in a Congolese branch of a Japanese religious movement. In so doing, the contributors demonstrate how the social and material living conditions of African cities generate diverse affective forms of religious experiences in ways that foster both localized and transnational paths of emotional knowledge.
Contemporary Christianity in Africa has seen an increase in Pentecostalism/ Charismatism, whose activities include performing miracles, prophecies and exorcism. Although it is acknowledged that the charismatic movement has its roots in
Pentecostalism, clear differences can be identified between Pentecostalism and Charismatism. Given this distinction, this study focused on exploring the effects of the activities of charismatic churches on the mental health of their church members. Eighty-six respondents from six charismatic churches in Accra and Kumasi participated in the study through individual, in-depth, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions,
and observations of church activities. Our results show that church practices such as prophecies and miracles, as well as other activities such as prayer meetings and fellowship groups, had both positive and negative impacts on mental well-being. Church doctrines and teachings similarly had both positive and negative impacts on participant well-being. Positive impacts included building of resilience, comfort and hope in difficult times, developing self-efficacy and positive self-regard, as well as positive behavioural and lifestyle changes. Negative impacts included fostering feelings of guilt, shame and fear, increased paranoia and suspicion, as well as potential exclusion and the resultant despair from flouting church rules or expectations. These impacts are discussed with emphasis on their implications for mental well-being and interventions.
This article assesses the evaluation of John G. Lake, one of the founders of South African Pentecostalism, by some historians regarded as a fraud, con man and false prophet in terms of several elements of his life: his business concerns; his mission to Africa; ministry of Spirit baptism and divine healing; and some accusations made by Lake’s co-workers. The conclusion is reached that there are valid points of criticism against Lake’s ministry and concerns about his integrity, although it is also true that the specific historical evaluation is hampered by presuppositions that preclude any miracles and a seemingly preconceived notion of Lake as a fraud and scam, supported by an unbalanced utilisation and unfair treatment of resources.
Western missionaries frequently stood at the forefront of altering African systems of healthcare and belief. Medical missionaries often spoke of their work as a means of combatting “superstition” and re-orienting African concepts of disease and illness towards Western notions of causality and treatment. Amidst missionary panegyrics, however, were a range of perceptions of and reactions to missionary medicine from Christian and non-Christian Africans alike. This essay explores these processes of resistance and appropriation through a combined analysis of missionary medicine and missionary involvement with the Uganda Museum. No single group in colonial Uganda offered as trenchant a critique of missionary healthcare and their involvement with the museum as did the leaders of an independent church known as the Malakites. The Malakites contended that it was the missionaries themselves who were hindering true progress away from paganism. For them, all “pagan shrines,” whether of African or European origin, were an affront to the sovereign God, who needed no form of human intervention to heal.
This article presents some findings from a three year field study conducted to find out Batswana health seeking practices. The study triangulated both qualitative and quantitative methods in selected districts of Botswana. Traditional healers, faith healers, modern health practitioners and administrators and users of the different health services participated in the study. The study established that the majority of Batswana first seek modern medical services when they are ill. Be that as it may, the study also established that despite widespread provision of modern/Western/allopathic health services in Botswana, traditional and spiritual/faith health services still attract Batswana. Understanding health holistically, Batswana continue to make use of all systems of health provision. In light of this, the article therefore calls for strong collaboration of the different systems of health within the country.
This article argues that Zionist Christianity emerged in South Africa out of the peasant revolt that occurred in the Boer Republics during and after the South African War. Using the experiences of early Zionist leaders Daniel Nkonyane and Engenas Lekganyane, the article demonstrates the continuity of their theology with the ideology of the ‘Rebellion From Below’ first described by Jeremy Krikler. The early Zionists, like their predecessors, were primarily interested in recreating a world based on communal politics and land ownership – a world without rents, landlords, or white supervision.
In this article, the author historically describes the process by which Faith Tabernacle Congregation was established by an Evangelist (and later Overseer) in John Alexander Dowie's Christian Catholic Church in Zion. He then explains the similarity of both churches' African missions – the Christian Catholic Church in South Africa and Faith Tabernacle in Nigeria. Both American churches, with a distinct genealogical relationship to one another, significantly affected very similar Christian movements, which were the Zionist movement in South Africa and the Aladura movement in Nigeria. Both of these movements are frequently credited with institutionalizing divine healing within African Christianity, and many scholars argue that African Pentecostalism begin within these movements. In the conclusion, the author reflects historiographically on this relationship: the Christian Catholic Church to Faith Tabernacle and particularly Zionism to Aladura. He argues that the historical relatedness between the two churches challenges the generally held notion that healing in African Christianity is only an expression or continuity of a ‘primal African religiosity.’ The Christian Catholic Church in South Africa and Faith Tabernacle in Nigeria did not represent the conjoining of opposing cultural forms, as in discussions of syncretism, but the hybridizing of very similar religious beliefs and practices with respect to disease, health, and healing.
The academic study of religion emphasises the accurate description and naming of religious phenomena. Using precise and unambiguous labels has been particularly encouraged. However, the study of Christianity in Africa has, over the years, used a vanity of terms for African Independent Churches (AICs). This article surveys the dominant labels and analyses the methodological difficulties that emerge from adopting some of them. The essay maintains that utilising insights from the history of religions may mitigate some of the terminological difficulties that characterise the study of Christianity in Africa.
Health and religion are closely linked. Scholars in Medicine, Social Studies and Missiology have paid a great deal of attention to African health systems. AICs in Southern Africa have studied, in particular, the relationship between Christian healing and traditional healing. Pioneer studies of these religious movements by Sundkler (1961:238-239) depict AICs as custodians of traditional culture. Seen as the revitalisation of African culture in the disguise of Christianity, they are also perceived as "bridges back to paganism" (Kealotswe 2005:1). Daneel describes this form of syncretism as transformation of "old and new" in Zionist Churches in Zimbabwe. To date, discussion has been centred on the influence of the traditional worldview to the exclusion of charismatic forms of African Christianity. This essay tries to fill this gap by exploring the relationship between the African traditional religion and Christianity by examining the aetiologies of illness and healing in a particular African independent church; the approach used is an alternative approach, phenomenology. The essay tests the contention that independent churches are not only influenced by traditional worldviews, but also integrate charismatic forms of Christianity.
The leadership role of women is a controversial theme in contemporary African Christianity. This paper is an overview of the place of women in Nigerian Pentecostal churches. Particular attention is paid to the leading role of selected women in the African Indigenous Pentecostal churches and the Neo-Pentecostal churches, in contrast to the subjective status of women in most Classical Pentecostal churches in the country. The paper highlights the contributory roles of some women leaders in Nigerian Pentecostal churches and also reveals the extent to which women are marginalised in some circles. Reasons for this are suggested, along with possible solutions.
This paper explores the connections between gender and the independency Christian ideology in the formation of new social relations as well as affirmation of traditional relations of domination between men and women. To aid in the analysis of these issues a case study is used, that of the Nomiya Luo Church, whose history and tenets are discussed. This church developed within a semi patriarchal set up hence we analyse male dominance and its persistence in church. Some of the religious doctrines, beliefs and value systems and their impact on the roles and values concerning women are considered. Roles of women in independent churches, the opportunities for leadership, their roles as healers and patients and in relation to their background and concerns of daily life are discussed. Moreover, as the rank and the file members of such movements, women also possess their own hidden sub-cultures and practices, which definitely influence the groups. The intention is to establish the gender roles and attitudes in this church.
The African independent churches often have to stand against the traditional churches in order to emphasize what is African — but often at the expense of spiritual development. Is it possible to help the independent churches become more biblical while continuing to meet the basic needs of the African Christian? At the same time, can the churches that came to Africa deeply imbedded in Western culture extricate themselves from this cultural encumbrance and become churches that will produce true African Christians? Bible Society Consultant Jake Loewen believes that the answer to both questions is “yes”.
The article draws attention to the continuing popularity of African traditional healing practices, and asks whether African churches and modern medical programs can continue simply to denounce or to ignore such practices. The need for a further appraisal becomes apparent when it is shown that the purposes of these healing practices fulfill certain functions not met by modern medicine. When a comparison shows that the healing practices recorded in the Old and New Testaments often have more in common with African traditional practices than with modern medicine, the question whether the African Christian community should re-evaluate the traditional healing practices becomes unavoidable.
Zionist Churches, especially those emphasising healing, exhibit a strikingly acquiescent attitude towards South African State politicies. This article examines the evidence as well as the explanations that have been put forward by social scientists and theologians. The particular focus of the article, however, is on medical systems as mechanisms of social control, a perspective that in this context has tended to be overlooked.
En dépit de la domination économique et culturelle occiden tale sur les peuples du tiers-monde, des formes de thérapeutiques indigènes sont restées vivaces dans beaucoup d'endroits. Et les mouvements de libération nationale ont, pour une part au moins, contribué à leur conférer un regain d'intérêt. Dans ces contextes profondément occidentalisés et urbanisés, les thérapeutiques spiri tuelles indigènes ont prouvé leur efficacité, particulièrement dans les cas où la dislocation des liens sociaux ont accru les souffrances d'origine psychosomatique. Alors que la médecine scientifique occidentale nefournissaitpas d'explication de ces méthodes théra peutiques, des changements et de nouveaux développements sont intervenus dans les paradigmes des sciences de la nature pour ren dre possible une appréciation plus adéquate de telles pratiques tra ditionnelles des peuples du tiers-monde.
People sometimes react with little enthusiasm to development projects designed for them — or even resist such projects. One of the reasons for this is that development projects and modernization impose Western values and world‐views on other cultures. The search for an authentic identity based on African values is described by prominent modern African writers all over the continent This search includes, to a greater or lesser extent, the rejection of Western values and lifestyles. In this article the views of African writers on the African concept of a cosmic order and the corresponding concept of development is compared with the traditional Western concepts. Theological reflection from a Christian point of view is also included. Various ‘gaps’ that exist are discussed, as well as possibilities for reconciling the opposing values and world‐views.
This study aimed to understand and interpret faith healers' explanations of the aetiology
and treatment of diseases and to canvass their views regarding collaboration between
Western trained health care professionals and faith healers. Fifteen female and six male
faith healers from Apostolic churches in Marondera (Zimbabwe) were selected and
interviewed (mean age = 42.38 years; age range = 20-69 years). All the faith healers
interviewed had been practising from two to fifty years. Content analysis of the data
indicated that faith healers use a variety of procedures like prayer, holy water,
counselling and sacred stones during their healing sessions. Common ailments brought to
the faith healers included mental disorders, infertility, substance abuse, sleep disorders,
childhood problems and physical problems. Witchcraft and avenging spirits were cited as
the most common causes for illness. Closer cooperation between Western trained health
practitioners and traditional (faith) healers is needed in the treatment of both physical and
mental illnesses.
The recent explosive proliferation of African Independent Churches (AICs) in central Mozambique coincided with rapid growth of economic disparity in the 1990s produced by privatization, cuts in government services, and arrival of foreign aid promoted by Mozambique's World Bank/International Monetary Fund Structural Adjustment Program. Drawing on ethnographic research in the city of Chimoio, this article argues that growing inequality has led to declining social cohesion, heightened individual competition, fear of interpersonal violence, and intensified conflict between spouses in poor families. This perilous social environment finds expression in heightened fears of witchcraft, sorcery, and avenging spirits, which are often blamed in Shona ideology for reproductive health problems. Many women with sick children or suffering from infertility turn to AICs for treatment because traditional healers are increasingly viewed as dangerous and too expensive. The AICs invoke the "Holy Spirit" to exercise malevolent agents and then provide a community of mutual aid and ongoing protection against spirit threats.
Pentecostal and African Independent Churches have rapidly spread throughout central Mozambique in the aftermath of war and in the midst of a recent structural adjustment program that has hastened commoditization of community life and intensified local inequalities. This extraordinary expansion signals a shift away from reliance on "traditional" healers to treat persistent afflictions believed to have spiritual causes. Survey data and illness narratives collected from recent church recruits and local residents during research in 2002 and 2003 in the city of Chimoio reveal that healers have increased fees and tailored treatments to clients searching for good fortune in ways that have alienated many other help seekers in this changing social environment. While traditional healing has been celebrated in the international health world, community attitudes are less generous; many healers are increasingly viewed with suspicion because of their engagement with malevolent occult forces to foment social conflict, competition, and confrontation for high fees. Church healing approaches offer free and less divisive spiritual protection reinforced by social support in a new collectivity. One vital source of church popularity derives from pastors' efforts to tap the already considerable community anxiety over rising healer fees and their socially divisive treatments in an insecure environment.
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