“Lord Heal Me Through Faith!

“Lord Heal Me Through Faith!”
For the last three days we have been attending a symposium organised by the All Africa Conference of Churches(AACC) held in Nairobi, Kenya. During these days we have been grappling with misleading theologies in Africa. I was opportuned to present a paper on misleading theology of healing in African Christianity.
My paper had as thesis that the misleading theologies of healing in Africa is partly the heritage of missionary christianity that emphasised the importance of western medicine and education as a way of intoducing the Bible to the African instead of the other way round.
The missionary movement coming to Africa in the wake of the renaissance did not take seriously the African worldview and African cosmology of healing.
At the same time having exalted reason at the expense of faith, they had dismissed the miracles, excorcisms, and faith healings as practiced by Jesus and others in the New Testament.
African Indigenous churches had to use indigenous hermeneutics to discover the power of miraculous healings in the Bible which for them became the foundation of misleading theologies of healings propagated by the missionaries.
Unfortunately the missionary heritage as continued by mainline churches failed to give answers to the questions of African existential realities of witchcraft, curses, demon possession etc. Thus appropriating the miraculous healings of the Bible was a replacement of the old with something new, but understood in the same old understanding.
This has given rise to charlatanism that has exploited this gap to their advantage by dangerously playing on the psychic of the vulnerable as a means od enriching themselves. And they have surely succeeded very well.
In the course of our discussions we became more aware that the false theologies are like the reformations of old that led the Catholic church to a counter reformation.
Today we are introduced to the healing of a paralytic through the faith of concerned friends who looked for all means to bring him to Jesus for healing. Jesus healed him by merely telling him, “…arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” And the man was healed(Lk.5:17-26).
Faith still rolls the mountains today. Let us go back to the old time religion of the true gospel and Jesus will still heal us through faith even today. By so doing charlatans won’t take advantage of the vulnerable!
Sunday prayer: Lord let me be convinced of my faith in you. Heal me through faith Amen!
Happy Sunday! Peace be with you!