To Have Life,and Have It Abundantly! Health and Well-Being in Biblical Perspective

Epidemiological studies researching the impact of participation in religious activities on the overall health and well-being of individuals suggest that having faith and practicing religion is good since they represent expense free, non-medical coping mechanisms accessible to everyone. Faith and religion, thus, can serve for a large number of people as potential reservoirs for cultivating well-being and maintaining health, thereby cutting health-care costs significantly. This begs the question if such pragmatic instrumentalization does do justice to faith and religion in the first place. The article investigates this question taking the Christian biblical tradition as an example by, first, identifying texts speaking of ‘health’ across different Bible versions (I), second, by sketching related concepts of ‘health’ (II) and, finally, by assessing the actual extent to which biblical tradition supports the quest for health and well-being (III).     

Contrast and complementarity: Two approaches to the thought of Joseph Ratzinger

Abstract

With their emphasis on healing, Zionist churches in southern Africa currently represent by far the largest group among the so-called African Independent or Indigenous Churches (AICs) and, as such, a type of church in their own right. They reflect, in short, an indigenous response to the challenges of modernity, as experienced in their respective socio-political, religious, and cultural settings. After sketching the history of their origin, which is linked to J. A. Dowie as well as to the Keswick movement, and describing the worship and congregational life ‘in Zion' in some detail, the article concludes with a theological reflection about the lived ecclesiology and pneumatology of these churches, which deeply challenge the very perception of established Christian theologies. The aim is to stimulate serious dialogue, which, as the author is convinced, will lead to an authentic re-owning of the Christian tradition by all the Church.