Introduction:
Pastoro-praxis approach to healing is a paradigm shift
in the thought process to understand, practice and promote healing in our life
(faith) journey as fellow humans. This presentation is not attempting to
initiate an academic discourse on the topic healing but facilitating us to look
the healing spiritually, ministerially and diaconally with practical
theological lenses.
This presentation is aiming to de-construct the popular
views of the epistemologists, post-modernists and post-foundationalists on
healing rather approaching through the socio-theological constructionalism where
people and contexts are at the centre in this discourse.
Four Contexts:
Commonly, the academic fraternity approaches the issues
to be read through four contextual views namely (i) Post-modern or Liberal
View, (ii) Traditional / Cultural View, (iii) Classical / Historical View and
(iv) Charismatic / Fundamentalists' View.
Theology of Mission
Bottom Line for
Mission is nothing but to affirm, promote and defend the Gospel Value of Love,
Justice and Peace
World View of Healing:
Healing is nothing
but, a process of becoming well 'again' or
healing is a process in which a bad situation or painful emotions ends or improves.
Healing is
generally or popularly understood as Cure. It is the fact that there are two
different schools of thought deal with these two areas such as Social Science
and Medical Science respectively. It is unfortunate to note that, some of the
popular faith movements including Christian faith misunderstood and mislead the
public by holding healing crusades and performing physical ‘cure’. Some of the
faith or philosophical schools advocate for the healing of body and mind (heart
and mind) through life style changes like yoga, meditation and diets and such.
1.
Health and Healing:
a. God heals and
desires our health and wholeness.
but this does not mean that divine intervention is intended to provide bodily
cures in every circumstances.
b. God does not always cure but heals through divine touch.
c. Fitness (Yoga) is a contemporary cult and it is a product
/ commodity of patriarchy and an idolatrous distortion of the
'Truth'.
d. 'Cult of normalcy': This internalised social thought prevails among the majority that define how those of us, who
fall within the bell curve of ability as opposed to being labelled as people
with disabilities and measured through
the pro-creative potency, understand
ourselves as “normal and healthy”
human beings.
e. The 'ableism' and 'ablest' presumptions of the society
undermines the God's interventions
in the lives of the human society. But for
sure ableism is counter to Yahweh’s concern for the poor, the weak, and the
marginalized. It also counters the upside-down world of Jesus as the face of
the coming reign of God insists that the final banquet is attended by social
outcasts, including “the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame”
2.
Faith and Healing:
a. It is not wrong or a mistake to presume God will
supernaturally intervene to heal or
cure by the wonder-working power of his Spirit! But, it would also be wrong to think that if
we live according to what we believe the covenant requirements are, we are
guaranteed a healthy and long life.
b. Salvation
is not necessarily to be understood through the fitness of body but through
healing.
c. From that perspective the abled persons often presume
that we know how to pray for others—for
instance, that they want healing that make them normal just like us—rather than acknowledging the pertinent prayers of the people of the disabilities. This
plays out most problematically when interacting with people with disabilities.
d. Religious belief in divine intervention
does not depend on empirical evidence that faith healing achieves
an evidence-based outcome. However, the emphasis is given on the touch
of a divine energy than the physical touch of the religious leaders.
3.
Theology and
Healing:
a. We
need to re-read the meaning of the 'people of God' and the 'body of Christ'! At
the time of Pentecost, all flesh female and male, young and old, have-nots and
haves, disabled and abled to be seen from the perspective that each flesh from
the sight of the Spirit of God is whole and deserve salvation of God.
b.
All should consider, including the sick and
terminally ill and treat equally with prayer for their well-being of all – for
all. Rejoice with each other, celebrate each other’s lives with acceptance,
laments, and grieves as God of the Bible exemplified.
c. Healing
is Eschatological. It is not life after death but hope for the life on earth.
4.
Healing and
Transformation:
a. The Gospel of
Christ transforms all lives by challenging and confronting the oppressive
schools of thoughts and its practices by an individual and the society at large. The Gospel is not
only transforming our minds but also hearts.
b. Hence, suffering
and disability are not segregated from the Gospel that proclaims the reign of God, which is Just and
Inclusive.
c. If we read the healing
narratives in the Gospels in the New Testament, it facilitates the community to
be part of God's inclusiveness by being with the healed individuals. Hence, the
healing transforms the communities and societies at large not just limited with
an individual themselves.
d. Accepting the
physical status itself is a healing.
5.
Pastoro-praxis
Reading of Healing:
a. Redemptive pastoral practices that embrace and await the
full healing and wholeness promised by the gospel.
b. These can also be explicated in three interrelated
domains: the interpersonal, the social/ecclesial, and the eschatological.
i.
Prayer for cure vs Prayer for healing
ii.
God
heals the wounded psyche not necessarily cures the tormented parts in our
physical bodies.
iii.
Pastoral
engagements should be sensitive in demeaning the ableists' presumptions
Theological Paradigm of Mission:
- · Conventional to Covenantal
- · Great Commission to Great Commandment
- · Healing as a spirituality towards the community at large rather than a cure of an individual
- · Maintenance of Life and Witness to Towards Life and its Fullness
- · Proclaim to Practice - Doing the Gospel
- · Contexts from the Word rather than Word to the Contexts
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