Christianity and Traditional Medicine in Northern Malawi

The coming of Christianity to Africa is one of the significant movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This books is about the participation of missionaries in the healing ministry. Currently three forms of healing can be identified in Malawi: biomedicinal, traditional healing and spiritualist healing of the Christian or Islamic type. Of these, the missionaries brought the biomedicinal system that at that time was a new system of healing, which was attractive to the local people. This new system was introduced in the context of the traditional healing that relied on traditional medicine and the medicine person, the traditional healer. The modern system of healing and its medicine went hand in hand with evangelization. The traditional healing system and its medicines were discredited and were associated with heathenism. However, its use is still flourishing even among those who confess to be Christians. This book contributes to our understanding of the dynamics that have been at play in the intersection between Christianity and African indigenous societies in Malawi.