Inculturation
in Process: Influence of the Coping-Healing Churches on the Attitudes
and Praxis of Mainline Churches
Stuart
C Bate, OMI
Inculturation
may be understood as the emergence of a local church in a place (Bate 1994,
100). By a local church we mean the manifestation of the one church of Christ
as the community of faith in a particular context. Essential for this
emergence are two apparently opposed forces whose dialectical resolution
motivates the inculturation process. The first of these forces is the
unifying, creative and redemptive power of God seeking the oneness of creation
and salvation, so that God may be all in all. The second is the incarnational
locus of all creation and salvation which moves the Word to take on flesh in a
time, place and culture and the Spirit to take the church to the ends of the
earth.
The
resolution of this dialectic may be expressed as the emergence of unity in
diversity[1]
or as a communion of communities.[2]
The papal document emerging from the African Synod,
Ecclesia in Africa, describes the resolution of this dialectic
as showing respect for two criteria in the inculturation process, namely
‘compatibility with the Christian message and communion with the
Universal Church’ (EA62; cf RM 54). These
two criteria highlight the importance of unity in the inculturation process.
They affirm the relatedness of all Christian consciousness, ethos and mission
which is expressed so well by Paul: ‘There is one Lord, one faith, one
baptism and one God and the father of all, over all, through all and with
all’ (Eph 4: 6).
The
visible manifestation of this unity has always been a matter of major concern
for the Roman Catholic Church, whose members make up 50% of all Christians
(Barrett 1996, 25) and 41% of African Christians (Baur 1994, 524). The sheer
size of this church is often left out of account in Southern Africa, where it
is just one among many other Christian denominations. However, this pluralism
gives Southern African Catholic theologians the advantage that they are more
likely to seek and find other ways in which the Spirit's unifying presence is
manifested in the community of faith that makes up the complex ecclesiastic
reality of Southern African Christianity. [3]
Elsewhere
we have compiled a model that is useful for examining this issue (Bate 1995,
243-50).[4]
We note there that missiology can be understood as the study of what occurs
along the boundary between the church and a context as the church inserts
itself into that context. This process is driven by the Holy Spirit and the
people who make up the context, for people constitute a context as they do the
church. The context is transformed by the presence of the church, as is the
church by the presence of the context. This process, under the influence of
the Spirit, occurs in time and is what we mean by inculturation. Clearly,
then, inculturation is an enormously complex process that describes the life
of the church in the world, its mission, and its ministries.
If
what we have said above is true, then we should be able to study the process
in operation by focusing on certain events occurring within a context. Events
occurring in areas within the context that are undergoing the greatest change
will be the most accessible to
study if we wish to see inculturation in action.
The
healing ministry is one such area in the South African church at this time. We
have gone so far as to say that in this time, and in our context,
inculturation should consist largely in healing, given the sickness of our
society in recent history (Bate 1995, 283). Consequently we have tried to
study the emergence of the healing ministry from this angle. The earlier study
focused on the healing ministries that developed in response to this
particular African situation.
Initially
this ministry featured most prominently in two types of coping-healing
churches. One group, the African Independent (Indigenous/Initiated) Churches (AICs),
operates in an African traditional cultural paradigm (Bate 1995, 114). The
other operates in a postmodern Western cultural paradigm. We have argued that
these two cultural paradigms are not as far apart as one might think (Bate
1995, 253; 263).
Because
of the organic nature of the context – that is, people living together in a
society – we would expect the healing ministries of the coping-healing
churches to ripple through the ecclesiastic community. This study looks at the
effect of that ripple. The question is simple: what impact have the ministry,
presence, and rapid growth of the coping-healing churches had on the
consciousness and praxis of the mainline churches in the last couple of
decades? Linked with this is a further question: Is the ecclesiastic body
already integrated, or are the new
churches what they are often called – ‘sects’, in other words, separate
groupings whose followers have broken away and have no relationship with the
other churches? Are churches in fact as separate from one another as they
often profess to be?
Studying
the ripple in the perspective of the mainline churches allows us to see how
the built-in inertia of these churches – a result of their long tradition
– affects their attempts to counteract the influence from the context. This
inertia should be particularly great in the Roman Catholic Church with its
emphasis on tradition and history. Thus a study of the consciousness and
healing practices of the mainline churches, and of their awareness of the
coping-healing churches, should be a good litmus test of the coherence of
ecclesiastic reality, the community of faith, in this particular African
context.
In
the rest of this paper we attempt to determine the influence of coping-healing
churches on the practices and consciousness of mainline churches regarding
their own healing ministry.
The
method employed in this study is relatively simple. The impact of
coping-healing churches on mainline churches was approached at two levels. At
a first, fairly superficial level, a simple questionnaire was used.
The survey asked the priests or ministers of three mainline churches in
the Durban-Pietermaritzburg region about the types of healing ministry they
engaged in, the changes in this ministry over the preceding years, and the
impact of the coping-healing churches on their theology and ministry regarding
healing. The survey was conducted twice, in 1991 and 1996. The 1991
questionnaire dealt with the preceding decade, the 1996 survey covered the
previous five years. In this way a
fifeen-year period (1981-96) was covered. The questionnaire appears in
Appendix A.
At
a second, deeper level of inquiry, nine ministers from one mainline
denomination, the Roman Catholic Church, were interviewed to probe their
thoughts and feelings about the healing ministry in general and the influence
of the coping-healing churches on that ministry. The same nine questions were
put to each interviewee. Their answers are summarised in Appendix B.
Consequently this study gives us access to the phenomenon under investigation in both its diachronic and synchronic dimensions. The questionnaires help us to understand what happened during these years at the practical level, that is, how ministerial healing practices changed. The interviews deepen our insight into mainline church ministers’ attitudes and values with regard to the healing ministry. This study must be seen as a preliminary one, in which the phenomena only begin to surface. We do not claim to have produced any rigorous knowledge. We have merely recorded some initial findings, which clearly need much deeper multidisciplinary study in order to produce valuable contextual missiology.
Results from Questionnaires
It
has always been possible to find healers and a healing ministry in the
mainline churches, although this ministry is often conducted discreetly,
especially among blacks,[5]
because of perceived difficulties with ecclesiastic authorities (Bate 1995,
47). Nevertheless, we felt that there had been a general increase in awareness
of, and involvement in, the healing ministry in mainline churches and we
wished to test this feeling. Accordingly, a questionnaire was drawn up and
distributed to ministers and priests in charge of congregations of the three
largest mainline churches in the Durban-Pietermaritzburg area: the Anglican,
Methodist and Roman Catholic Churches.
The
survey was conducted by post through the three churches’ controlling bodies:
the Catholic Archdiocese of Durban, the Anglican Diocese of Natal and the
Natal Coastal District of the Methodist Church. Only major conclusions which
affect our study are presented here:[6]
Sixty-eight replies were received to 184 questionnaires distributed – a
return of 37%, which is considered sufficient to permit us to draw
conclusions. Since respondents were likely to be those most affected by, or
interested and involved in, the healing ministry, one would expect the results
to be positively skewed. This should not invalidate general conclusions,
however, since the sample is such a high percentage of the total population.
Table
1 shows some significant findings of this survey. All three churches had
received more requests for healing during the period 1980-91. All of them had
expanded their healing ministry and all had lost members to the coping-healing
churches, although the losses were on the whole perceived as relatively small.
When asked about their response to the challenge presented by the healing
churches, the results were mixed (see Table 2). Between 30% and 50% of
ministers had perceived a challenge and responded accordingly. Others had
either not seen the coping-healing churches as a challenge or had not
responded.
The same controlling bodies circulated the same questionnaire at the
end of 1995 and in early 1996. This second enquiry drew more replies from
Anglicans (an increase from eighteen to thirty-eight); the number of
respondents from the other two denominations was roughly the same.[7]
The question about increasing requests for healing was changed from ‘the
last ten years’ to ‘the last five years’ in order to reflect changes
since the previous questionnaire. All other questions were left unchanged.
Table 3 shows that on the whole requests for healing continued to
increase, but less markedly in the Catholic Church. Similarly, all three
churches said they had further expanded their healing ministry in the five
years since 1991. This was particularly pronounced among Anglican respondents.
There were four significant changes in their healing ministry. Firstly,
there was increased visiting of the sick, often linked with greater
empowerment of lay people to do this work. Secondly, more prayer groups or
teams had been established to concentrate on healing in the parish/area.
Thirdly, a greater number of healing services was offered. The same three
changes had been noted in the 1991 survey, but this time the focus was on
educating people about the true nature of healing. Many mainline church
ministers felt that promises and experiences of religious healing were
exaggerated and often confusing, and that there was a need to teach their
people more about these things. This was a new response.
According to the ministers surveyed, the loss of members to the
coping-healing churches continued during the period 1991-96. However, as in
the earlier survey, the loss was predominantly confined to a few members only.
Catholic respondents seemed to notice a greater drift away from their church,
with 20% noting a worrying number of Catholic defections. In both surveys the
Catholic priests were more aware of a loss of people: 74% (1991) and 62%
(1996) reported this to be the case. Nevertheless the trend seemed to be
slowing down by 1996, when 21% of Catholic respondents reported no loss to the
coping-healing churches in the previous five years, compared with only 7% in
1991. By contrast half the Anglicans had reported no loss in 1991— a
proportion which increased to 55% by 1996. The Methodists were somewhere
between the other two churches. Racial differences may have played a part in
this.[8]
The 1996 survey confirmed that the response to the challenge from the
coping-healing churches continued to be along the lines of more healing
services, more prayer groups, and increased catechesis and teaching about
healing.
A significant difference emerged between some Methodist and Anglican
respondents on the one hand, and Catholic respondents on the other. This
centred on the question whether the growth of the coping-healing churches in
fact represented a challenge. The Catholic respondents (as indeed this
Catholic researcher had inadvertently presumed) saw the growth of a ministry
and the emergence of other churches per se as a challenge to their church.
This is probably a characteristic ecclesiological position of the Catholic
Church, which regards fragmentation and the emergence of new churches a priori
as a challenge. The responses to the questionnaire reflected this position.
Some Methodist and Anglican respondents, however, questioned the framework of
this question, noting that the emergence of such churches and ministries need
not necessarily be a challenge. Table 4 shows that 37% of Anglican respondents
and 32% of Methodist respondents specifically wrote that challenges do not
come from other churches but rather from God, Jesus or the Bible. This comment
was entirely missing from the Catholic responses.
Interview
Results
The second part of the study sought to identify attitudes and values
among mainline church ministers prompted by the emergence of the
coping-healing churches and the healing ministry in general. Of the three
mainline churches studied, one was chosen – the Roman Catholic Church, being
the author’s own denomination. This choice was meant to obviate the effects
of denominational differences on the results, which would have necessitated
more complex analyses and a longer paper. Clearly the other churches need to
be studied in the same way. Nine parish priests were chosen from the
Durban-Pietermaritzburg area, all working in the Archdiocese of Durban. The
sample covered a spread of ages, cultural backgrounds and ministerial
contexts, as illustrated in Table 5.
Attitudes
and Values
Nine questions were asked of each priest. These questions appear in
Appendix B. The interviews are analysed very briefly here, indicating only the
most pronounced attitudes. A more detailed analysis of the responses appears
in Appendix C.
All interviewees said that South Africa as a whole was in need of
special healing at this time. The feeling was that people had been wounded and
had suffered because of apartheid. They needed to be able to sit down and talk
about the past. In some parishes, parishioners were known to have personally
committed violence and killing, and yet no way of speaking about these things
had yet been found.
Six of the nine priests felt that the church had a vital role to play
in this healing process but that this role should be planned and organised,
and should be common policy rather than depend on individual priests. Prayer
and preaching were also considered essential. One priest said: ‘When I speak
about the killings and violence people cry. I know I am touching the depth of
their life here.’ Forgiveness was also considered to be a cardinal value in
the healing process and it was felt that the church should look for ways to
help people reach a point where they can forgive. Among the black priests, the
Inkatha Freedom Party-African National Congress cnflict was a much bigger
issue in their communities than the black-white issue. Among the non-black
priests, apartheid, racism, the suffering of blacks and the guilt of whites
were more prominent.
The priests’ attitudes to these churches were much less negative than
I had expected. Seven of the nine priests believed that they were in some way
responding to the needs, or felt needs, of people. Three replied that they did
not know much about the coping-healing churches. Negative attitudes to these
churches concerned their money-centredness and excessive reliance on
emotionalism, which was considered to provide only a short-lived high and not
real healing. Four of the priests had problems with the money-centredness of
many of these churches. These comments referred to the prosperity gospel, the
theology of praying for wealth, and the soliciting of money by offering all to
God in order to get more for oneself.
One priest wanted to make a clear distinction between the Zionists on
the one hand, ‘who live with the people’, and who, he felt, responded in a
caring way to people’s daily concerns, and what he called ‘tent
churches’ on the other hand, which come into an area, make a big impact and
then leave. He was very critical of these latter with their quick emotional
solutions, which he felt usually left people worse off than before they came.[9]
On the positive side, seven priests said that the coping-healing
churches did help people to feel better and to experience warmth, friendship
and community. Some indicated that this can pose a problem in some Catholic
parishes where congregations are large and insufficient time is devoted to
community building.
On the other hand, almost all felt that the healing given was only at
the emotional level of making people feel better. Three spoke about working
people up emotionally, and two referred to the healing as ‘emotional
manipulation’ which deprives people of their freedom and is thus opposed to
true healing. One priest, a psychologist, felt that these churches were merely
offering a spiritual ‘bandage’ for what were in fact psychological
problems.
Four referred to the healing as short-lived or ‘not real’. One said
that they were merely dressing up ordinary, natural psychosomatic mechanisms
in religious language and that there was nothing particularly Christian about
the healing offered.
All the priests were very clear that the Catholic Church has an
important religious healing ministry. Apart from its extensive institutional
healing work in hospitals, clinics and so forth, the priests felt that the
religious healing ministry had three major dimensions: the sacraments,
visiting the sick, and presence to the suffering.
The sacramental healing ministry was seen as growing in importance
among all groups, but there were some important shifts in the exercise of this
ministry. With regard to the sacrament of reconciliation, the practice of
confession as a regular (even weekly) event was on the decline. One priest
felt that this was one reason why people were having more emotional problems.
On the other hand, the people’s need to express their fears, hurts and
concerns was growing. In his view this might indicate that a sense of personal
culpability was on the decline. The sacrament of anointing the sick, by
contrast, was having a renaissance. Often seen in the past as a preparation
for death, this sacrament was being used increasingly to help the sick. In the
past this sacrament had been administered almost exclusively to individuals.
Now there was a growing practice of anointing the sick at communal services.
Visiting the sick had always been an important task of the clergy. Now
more and more groups of lay people were getting involved in this ministry. In
predominantly black parishes the women’s sodalities (St Anne’s, the Sacred
Heart Society, and the Third Order Regular of St Francis) were all involved in
this ministry. Small Christian communities, products of the Pastoral Plan[10]
of the Catholic Church, were also increasingly active. Some parishes had
prayer groups, healing teams, and lay ministers engaged in such work.
The ministry of presence involves listening to people’s problems,
counselling, consoling, giving spiritual direction, praying for people, and
just being with them. All the priests said that this ministry was essential.
Three of the black priests were regularly called in to cast out evil spirits
from people’s homes. ‘Troubling by spirits’ was quite a common pastoral
problem and one that they responded to when called upon.
When asked whether they felt challenged to look at new forms of healing
ministry, five of the nine priests said that new types of healing should be
explored in the Catholic Church. One said that the church just needed to use
its own traditional ministry more effectively. Only two said there was no need
to change anything. One was not sure.
All five of those wishing to explore new forms of healing felt that it
was important to encourage the growth of prayer groups in parishes and train
them to pray for people and their needs. Small Christian communities[11]
and lay associations were ideal places for the growth of these groups. One
caveat was the danger of elitism and rivalry among groups. Establishing such
groups would demand much work to help them remain open to the Spirit and not
to their own voices. Proper training and selection were considered essential.
Four priests suggested that at parish level there should be more
regular healing services where people could come to be prayed for. Three
priests had had previous experience of such services and had found them
valuable.
When speaking about new forms of healing ministry most of the priests
emphasised two important values: balance
and education or formation.
Balance means avoiding the dangers of exaggeration, hyper-emotionalism,
and superstition. These three traits were found to militate against true
healing and were often prevalent among people looking for healing. A major
criticism of the coping-healing churches was their excessive use of emotion in
religion (see above). At the same time a few priests felt that some Catholics
could benefit by recognising the importance of emotion in religious
experience. Nevertheless there was always a danger of overemphasising this
dimension. Catholic services, particularly in black areas, were often highly
emotional. One priest mentioned that singing was especially important in this
regard.
Similarly, the concern about evil spirits, bad luck, and the role of
the Holy Spirit in providing a good life was important, but an overly
spiritual[12]
approach could be problematic and lead to superstition and unwillingness to
take responsibility for one’s own life.
Taking responsibility for one’s life leads directly to the second
value emphasised by the priests – that of education or ‘formation’. Six
priests were concerned that Catholics did not know enough either about their
own Catholic healing tradition or about the nature of true Christian healing
itself. It was felt that a programme of preaching and teaching was needed.
Four priests spoke about the need for more catechesis on healing. One
middle-aged black priest complained that the theological training he had
received did not help him to answer people’s questions about healing. The
younger priests were much more confident in this area, recognising the
multifaceted dimensions of sickness and healing. This is probably why the
younger priests were more open to the strengths and weaknesses of the
coping-healing churches and to incorporating some of their practices and
values into their own ministry.
Some
General Conclusions from the Interviews
Younger priests and black priests appeared to be much more in touch
with the coping-healing churches and their ministry. They had had much more
experience, both personally and particularly from their own ministry to
Catholics. They were much more inclined to acknowledge that many Catholics
used the coping-healing churches and they were, paradoxically, more tolerant
of the practice and aware of the limitations of the healing these churches
offered. Very few of them saw the coping-healing churches as a threat, while a
number of them were aware of the need to incorporate some of their values and
practices into their own ministry. There was a general awareness of the need
for healing at all levels of South African society.
Inculturation
in Process
The inculturation model developed elsewhere[13]
predicts that during the emergence of a local church there is a transitional
moment when there is ‘a greater openness to, and participation of, the local
culture and world-view in the local Church’ (Bate 1995, 245). This is
followed by an explicit inculturation moment when ‘more values of the local
community [are] accepted into Church praxis. New ministries are approved but
some tensions remain in the relationship with [the] Universal Church’ (Bate
1995, 245).
We
maintain that the results of our enquiry can be interpreted in terms of this
model and that they are signs of inculturation in process in the emergence of
the local church in South Africa.
Our culture expresses our humanity. It is people who make up society,
as they make up the church. It is people who construe the meaning of any
context. Consequently the mediation between God and his creation is always,
for us, human. This is the meaning of the Christ experience. We should expect
the context to affect the church and the church to affect the context, and we
should expect this interrelationship to be mediated by culture. Elsewhere[14]
we have constructed a model that describes this relationship. The model
predicts that both the context and the culture of the people will influence
the church’s ministry, whether this is acknowledged or not. More
long-lasting ministerial responses will be highly controlled by culture.
The changing context in South Africa can be described as a transition
from a sick apartheid culture to a more humane one. The sick society has led
to the emergence of healing responses, largely articulated by the
coping-healing churches but increasingly present in the mainline churches as
well. These latter have tended to adapt more slowly because of the inertia
that stems from their long tradition. Our study has shown, however, that it is
incorrect to describe this tradition as monolithic. It, too, is changing as it
responds to context and culture. This is often not sufficiently realised when
churches (and, indeed, other social institutions) are caricatured in a
particular way. Such is prejudice. The situation is more fluid than we
sometimes realise.
An important current trend in this regard is the emphasis on culture
itself as a paradigm in which theology and ministry can be born. This truth is
not new: the ‘Infant Jesus of Prague’[15]
is a prime example of inculturation. What is new, and thus relevant here, is
consciousness of this realization. This awareness is also why the Catholic
priests interviewed were much more concerned about the cultural dimensions of
ministry than in the past. And that is why the younger and less modern[16]
Western ones were more open to the cultural healing forms present in the other
churches and to assimilating some of them into their own ministry.
At the same time our results show that this assimilation from the
context has not been uncritical. The mainline church ministers, both in the
questionnaires and in the interviews, were aware of values to assimilate and
counter values to reject. Their self-realization is a sign of the
transformation[17]
moment, an essential part of inculturation.
The coping-healing churches can themselves learn from this process. The
mainline ministers apply their own values and tradition in order to see what
is meaningful and to determine their new synthesis. This synthesis could be a
fruitful challenge to the coping-healing churches to also move on in their own
journey to the kingdom. Through learning from each other, from inculturation
in process, the church as a whole is impelled forward under the guiding hand
of the Spirit.
We have seen how the ministry of the coping-healing churches and the
changed South African context have influenced both the practices and attitudes
of mainline ministers. These changes can be summed up as greater consciousness
of the need for religious healing in South Africa and increased use of healing
services, prayer groups, prayer for healing, and preaching and teaching about
healing.
Mainline church ministers are aware of the coping-healing churches.
Many of them note that the coping-healing churches do indeed respond to
people’s pastoral needs and that they help many. They can pose a challenge
to the more staid religious forms of mainline church ministry, which stress
word and sign but sometimes fail to meet people sufficiently at an emotional
level.
The consensus seems to be that the healing received in the
coping-healing churches operates at the emotional level and that this
challenges the symbolism of mainline Christianity to communicate with people
at that level. Another challenge seems to be in the area of providing warm
caring communities. The Catholic Church in particular, with its large
congregations, feels this challenge. Of the nine Catholic priests interviewed
three had congregations of more than 6 000 and four others ministered to
congregations numbering between 3 000 and 6 000.[18]
The response to this challenge is to set up prayer teams, healing groups and
small Christian communities.
While emotional transaction can bring about healing,[19]
such healing is often transitory and superficial and needs to be regularly
repeated, leading to dependency and a lack of freedom. There are other areas
in which some coping-healing churches have been challenged in this study: an
emphasis on money and prosperity, lack of social involvement and commitment,
applying spiritual ‘bandages’ to psychological problems, and emotional
manipulation.
These are areas in which the church as a whole is called to question
itself in order to construe the full nature of healing and administer true
healing to people.
Developing
a Theology of Healing in South Africa.
In order to be authentic, praxis needs to be underpinned by theology,
or rather, to relate to it dialectically.[20]
It is not my purpose to construct a theology of healing.[21]
Nevertheless there are some important elements of such a theology which are
highlighted by this research and which can be added to my earlier work. These
come from ministers’ comments when they were asked in the interview to
identify some important elements of a theology of healing. Hence they already
form part of the consciousness of these priests and will clearly inform their
ministry. As this ministry grows in importance they will look for other
theological input to help them.
The healing ministry must be based on Christ’s own ministry as a
healer and on his teaching. This has important consequences for a theology of
healing. In the first place, Christ healed, as did his followers. The
missionary mandate clearly involves healing. At the same time it was felt that
a good biblical theology of the miracles and healings is required to help us
understand Jesus’ purpose in this regard. It was felt that the purposes of
the miracles are often oversimplified and thus confused, and that
interpretations vary greatly, particularly from church to church. Several
priests noted that Jesus did not put much trust in those who came looking for
miracles and that he often played down this part of his ministry.
The purpose of the miracles was often to instil faith – faith in God,
and not in the miracle or event or healing. Healing should lead to conversion
in the form of faith in Jesus – not to faith or trust in the healer or the
miracle, which may be a danger.
To be healers we should be followers of Christ and his teaching. This
means primacy of the law of love and of faith. All healing should be motivated
by care and love for people in their need and not by a search for sensational
and spectacular events. At the same time these latter should not be discounted
when God wishes to show his power in this way. Healing is seen as making
people whole and touches all dimensions of their life: political, social,
emotional, psychological, spiritual, physical and so forth. For this reason
some ministers felt that theology needs a proper understanding of the human
person and human community. One priest said that we need a ‘theology of
psychology’; this could be said of all sciences and arts. Theology needs to
speak to the reality of different forms of human wisdom, understanding, and
knowledge in order to participate adequately in the contemporary context.
The ministers also suggested that a theology of healing needs to look
at the question of suffering. Suffering is commonly associated with sickness
and death and often cannot be relieved as easily as some coping-healing
churches pretend. There has been much suffering in South Africa and the hope
is that in the new South Africa this will come to an end. Such hope is clearly
vain and any pastoral theology of healing must acknowledge the fact of
suffering as an abiding part of the human condition.
An adequate sacramental theology of healing would seem to be urgently
needed. Many priests felt that the healing sacraments of the church were
undervalued and often poorly administered. Ways are needed to aid the
ministering of these sacraments so that the signs would be a real intervention
in people’s lives, and not just at a ‘spiritual’[22]
level. People need to experience sacramental intervention at all levels of
their being so that the sacrament becomes a true pastoral sign.
Finally, the priests saw the question of human freedom as central to a
theology of healing. A fairly common concern, both in responses to the
questionnaires and in the interviews, was the manipulation that sometimes
occurs in healing services and prayer groups.
True healing implies the fullness of human life. It is an expression of
salvation realised on earth. Healing implies a faith decision taken in human
freedom. Jesus did not go around conducting healing services in which he
whipped up people’s emotions. His healings occurred along the way when
people came to him with their problems and sicknesses.
Religion can be used to control people’s minds and hearts. It then
becomes a stifling ideology. People may feel fine in such an environment,
since feelings are not always a barometer of reality.
The criticism of manipulation needs to be taken seriously, since
Christian life is quintessentially one of human freedom: Jesus comes as
liberation. True inculturation is always liberating and a theology of healing
is always called to be a theology of liberation.
A culturally based theological model like inculturation needs to be
underpinned by a notion of culture which incorporates the fullness of our
humanity rather than one based merely on identity. Conventional South African
cultural wisdom is weak in this regard because of apartheid socialisation and
ethnic consciousness. Consequently inculturation can easily lapse into
separateness, ethnically based churches, and syncretism. This has in fact been
the South African ecclesiastic experience.
As people of faith we need to take our common humanity and our
relatedness to the world community seriously. The quest for universality,
catholicity and relatedness is an
essential part of becoming a local church.
Our model[23]
predicts that the broad dimensions of inculturation are not likely to be
popular at this stage of South African history. South African churches are
currently going through a conscious assimilation process. There is a lot of
missionary bashing, reminiscent of much of African theology in the 1970s.[24]
Our model also predicts that there will be tension with the universal church
during this stage.
These facts should not make us lose sight of what lies ahead. There is
a movement to a new synthesis in the form of unity based on our common
humanity and our common faith in a common salvation in Jesus Christ. The
expression of this commonality will clearly reflect our diversity: a true
local church in union with the universal church, a community of communities in
communion. Consequently we are moving into times of openness, dialogue, and
readiness to be mutually evangelised—into communicating faith in communion
with one another.
The experience of the younger priests in the Catholic Church suggests
that these lines of communication are opening somewhat. They are being
influenced by the context to modify their ministry. All churches in South
Africa are called to a similar opening of lines. The only way for those who
refuse to do so because of prejudice, elitism, or intransigence is the road to
sectarianism, which is a road to certain death. As Christians we have to
believe that there is not to be a new revelation. The revelation has come in
Jesus Christ. The Spirit moves us to confess Jesus and to come together as one
holy people-- a diverse people who are a united people.
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G. 1974. A moratorium on
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D. 1988. Status of global mission, 1996, in context of 20th and 21st
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S C. 1991. Evangelization in the
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S C. 1994. Inculturation: the local
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S C. 1995. Inculturation and healing: coping-healing in South African
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the Catholic Church in Southern Africa after seven years.
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S C. 1999. Inculturation of
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J. 1994. 2000 years of Christianity in Africa. Nairobi: Paulines.
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C. 1987. Theology and praxis: epistemological foundations. New York:
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W. 1977. The missions on trial. Slough: St Paul.
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R O. ed. 1988. One faith,
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Napoli, G A. 1987. Inculturation
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1995. Ecclesia
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J M. 1986. Africa cry.
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1975. Evangelii nuntiandi: Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Paul VI, 8
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A, ed. 1984. Vatican Council
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1965 Gaudium et Spes: pastoral
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P J, B F Connor, and P B Decock, eds. 1991. Becoming a creative local
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A. 1976. African Christianity. London: Chapman.
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C. 1976. Tentative final ETSA (Evangelisation Today in South Africa) report.
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O U. 1978. Church unity and
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L. 1988. Pastoral ecclesiology for Southern Africa.
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Appendix A
QUESTIONNAIRE
TO MAINLINE CHURCHES ON THE HEALING MINISTRY
DURBAN/PIETERMARITZBURG
REGION
This
questionnaire is sent to you so that you can help with some research being
carried out in this field. All answers will be treated in the strictest
confidence and will be used only for the drawing of general conclusions.
Your
cooperation is appreciated in answering the following questions on the
healing ministry in your parish/area. The questionnaire should only take a
few minutes to complete.
(Questions
1 to 3 may be left blank if you prefer anonymity)
1.
Name of Parish/Church......................................
2.
Denomination...............................................
3.
Diocese/Circuit/District...................................
4.
Culture of the people in the parish........................
5.
State if the parish is Urban Semi-urban or rural...........
6.
Socioeconomic Status of the people (Rich/Middle Class/working
class/poor/deprived/other).............
7.
Languages spoken by the people in your parish ............
8.
What are the types of healing ministry your parish is involved in: (Make a
cross in the appropriate blocks)
Visiting
the sick
[ ]
Hospital
work
[ ]
(Specify
if possible)
..............................................
Sacraments
[ ]
Name
of Sacrament..................
How
often distributed..............
Prayer
ministry
[ ]
(Specify
if possible)
..............................................
Healing
Services
[ ]
How
often
.............................................
Other
healing ministries (Please specify)
..........…………………………………………………………….
9.
Within the last ten years did you experience more members/parishioners
coming to you with requests for healing/ exorcisms etc.?
Yes
[ ]
No
[ ]
Not
Sure
[ ]
10.
Has there been an increase in the healing ministry in your Church over the
last five years?..........................
Please
give details of any changes (e.g. healing services, group prayer for the sick,
increased visiting of the sick etc)
..................................................................................................................
11.
Have you lost members of your congregation to Churches whose major emphasis is
the healing of the sick and casting out of devils. (E.g. Christian City,
Rhema, City of Life, Zionists etc.
Yes
[ ]
a
few
[ ]
a
worrying number
[ ]
large
numbers
[ ]
No
[ ]
Not
Sure
[ ]
12.
Has your parish/church made any response to the challenge of these new
‘healing’ churches? Yes [ ] No [ ]
If
‘yes’ please specify ........................
13.
What response do you think should be made?
................................................................................................................……………………
14.
Any other comments?
..........................................................................................................................……………..
Appendix
B
QUESTIONS
ASKED IN INTERVIEWS
|
Questions
for Clergy Interviews on the Influence of Healing Churches on Mainline
Churches |
|
|
|
Name: Date
of Interview |
|
|
|
Question
1: What
is your opinion about the Healing Churches? |
|
Question
2: What
is your opinion about the healing they do? |
|
Question
3: Do
Catholics go for this healing in your opinion? Why/Why not? |
|
Question
4: Should
we see the growth of these Churches as a challenge to the Church or as
God’s will? |
|
Question
5: What
is your opinion about the Healing miracles of Jesus? |
|
Myths? |
|
Stories? |
|
Actual Events? |
|
Their message for us today? |
|
Question
6: Do
we have a healing ministry in the Church? If so what form does it
take? |
|
Question
7: Should
we have some other forms of healing ministry in the Catholic Church? |
|
If so , why and what forms should this healing ministry take? |
|
|
|
Question
8: What
would be some important elements of a Theology of Healing for you? |
|
Question
9: Does
South Africa need special healing at this time? Why/Why not? |
|
|
Main Points of the Interviews
[1]R
J Neuhaus (1987, 284) says that ‘Christian unity is inherent in being
the Church . . . the only unity that is lasting and worth pursuing is a
unity rooted in a shared confession of Christ and the Gospel. . . . Unity is
achieved . . . by reconciled diversity in obedience to the Gospel.’ The
African Protestant theologian Kalu (1978, 174) affirms this: ‘The
challenges of our world need the response of a united church. But church
unity is not merely the merger of institutions.
. . . Unity should be a process of establishing a community in order
that a humane future may be developed.’
[2]
The Church as a communion of communities has been a central vision of the
Lumko Pastoral Institute in developing its programmes for parish renewal
within the Catholic Church (cf Prior 1990, 26; see also Bate 1995, 236).
[3]Statistics
of the number of AICs are always estimates. Retief (1991, 1) indicates that
7500 churches are listed in state records between 1890 and 1987. Many of
these churches no longer exist and current estimates are 4000 to 5000
(Masuku 1996; Bate 1991, 58).
[4]The
model describes the importance of church, context, culture, and history in
determining the praxis of the church and its theology.
[5]
‘Black’ in this paper refers to people of black African ancestry in
Southern Africa (Abantu or Batho).
It does not include those Africans who have been referred to as Indian or
Coloured in the past, nor to Africans of Khoi or San ancestry.
[6]
The survey was distributed to ministers and priests in charge of
congregations or parishes in the Roman Catholic, Anglican and Methodist
Churches. Eighty copies were
distributed to parish priests of the Archdiocese of Durban, of which
twenty-seven were completed and returned. Sixty copies were distributed to
ministers of the Natal Coastal District of the Methodist Church, of which
twenty-three were completed and returned. Forty-four copies were distributed
to priests in the Durban and Pietermaritzburg area of the Diocese of Natal
of the Church of the Province of South Africa. Eighteen of these were
returned. Thus 184 questionnaires were distributed and sixty-eight were
returned, giving a total return of 37%. Of those returned, twenty-eight were
from predominantly Zulu-speaking congregations and forty from predominantly
English-speaking parishes; thirty-six returns were from mainly urban areas,
eighteen from semi‑urban areas and fourteen from rural areas. The
Roman Catholic Church was over-represented in rural areas, whereas the
Anglican Church was very under‑represented in both Zulu-speaking and
rural congregations.
[7]Questionnaires
were also sent to the ministers of the Natal West District of the Methodist
Church on this occasion.
[8]In
the 1991 survey 60% of the Catholic respondents were ministering to blacks
and 40% to whites. In 1996 the percentages were 52% black and 24% white. In
the 1991 survey 72% of Anglican respondents were ministering to whites and
only 17% to blacks. In 1996 this proportion was 66% white and 29% black. For
the Methodists the percentages were 48% ministering to whites and 35% to
blacks in 1991; while 68% were ministering to whites and 29% to blacks in
1996.
[9]The
priest said: ‘I would say the Zionists are more in touch with the people.
They live where the people are, whereas these tents are pitched for a time
and then they go and you don’t see them for a year. . . . They help you at
the time but they don’t go deep and the problems of the people are much
deeper than the surface they are touching. . . . They put money as the main
thing, which the Zionists do not.’
[10]The
Pastoral Plan of the Catholic Church in Southern Africa was inaugurated in
May 1989 with the theme ‘Community serving humanity’. For details see
SACBC 1987; SACBC 1989; Hartin et al 1991; Bate 1996.
[11]Small
Christian Communities ‘are neighbourhood communities; they are intended to
be permanent; they meet weekly in members’ homes, by rotation; they are
based on Gospel sharing and on communal action; they form a network
coordinated through the Parish Pastoral Council. All Catholics . . . are
invited to participate’ (SACBC 1989, 37).
[12]The
word ‘spiritual’ is used here in an anthropological sense: the human
person can be understood as having many aspects, of which the spiritual is
only one. Note that this differs from the biblical notion, especially in
Paul, where the life of the Spirit is the fullness of life. For Paul life
could not be overly spiritual. Here we are referring to the idea of
translating all human experience to the spiritual without considering other
dimensions of human life: physical, communal, cultural, etc. We clarify this
point since much Christian apologetics and misunderstanding tend to hinge on
differences in the usage of words.
[13]See
Bate 1995, 245. The model describes seven steps, from the arrival of the
missionaries in a non-Christian area to the emergence of a local church.
[14]Bate
1995, 247. This model describes the synchronic encounter between church and
context as mediated by culture. It describes how the more permanent
ministerial responses to a context are always culturally mediated.
[15]In
the seventeenth century the Countess Polyxena gave a nineteen-inch statue of
the infant Jesus dressed as a baroque prince to the Carmelite Fathers who
were responsible for a church in Prague. On presenting it she said: ‘I
give you what I prize most highly in the world. So long as you venerate this
image you will not want.’ The prophecy came remarkably true and devotion
to the statue spread throughout the city as people were cured of many
sicknesses. From there it has spread across the world. Many miracles and
healings have been attributed to this devotion. (Source: Guild of the Infant
Jesus of Prague (SA), Cape Town.)
[16]Modern
Western culture is the culture of rationalism, empiricism, the scientific
method, individualism, individual rights and so forth. It is a written
culture. Yet Western culture is moving away from this paradigm as the
communal, the cultural and the audiovisual become more important. These
distinctions in Western culture are important in Africa, which is
traditionally communal and oral and so has more in common with the emerging
postmodern cultural paradigm than with the modern one, at least in these
respects.
[17]See
Bate 1995, 244. Roest Crollius (1978, 733) has identified three stages in
the inculturation process. The final stage is that of transformation, when
the local church is in critical dialogue with its own culture in order to
transform it into a Christian culture. This dialogue is about the question
of compatibility with the gospel and union with the church (cf EA 62).
[18]Source:
Archdiocese of Durban Catholic Directory 1996, 170-2.
[19]For
anthropologists healing is basically seen as a transaction of emotions from
a feeling of unwellness to a feeling of wellness. See Bate 1995, 107.
[20]See
Boff 1987 and Bate 1995 for a discussion of this issue.
[21]See
Bate 1995, 179-243 where I have
begun to deal with this issue.
[22]See
the comments in footnote 7.
[23]See
my model of the Inculturation process (Bate 1995, 245). During the
transition moment (step 5) leadership changes from the expatriate
missionaries to local people. At this time, the church operates in terms of
two different visions and praxes, leading to inevitable tensions. New
culturally mediated ministries emerge that cause tensions with the universal
church, which is still assimilating the
culture of the new church. All this leads to inevitable – indeed, healthy
and creative – tension.
[24]For
examples of these critiques coming from African theologians in the 1960s and
1970s, see Ela (1986); Eboussi Boulaga (1984 - translations of earlier
French works from the 1970s); Appiah-Kubi and Torres (1979); and Hastings
(1976). Bühlmann (1978) also deals with this issue. South Africans are
beginning to enter into this debate. Maluleke (1993) is currently the most
controversial in missionary circles. The notion also informed a television
series, ‘God bless Africa’ (SABC 1996), which presented an
anachronistic, ideological mission history of the church in South Africa.