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04 July 2022 | Story Edzani Nephalela | Photo Edzani Nephalela
Faculty of Theology and Religion
From left to right: Dr Joel Mokhoathi, Ronel Ellis, Dr Nomfundo Mlisa, Prof Pieter Vester and Rev Jacob Makhutso

Growing up, many of us were raised in Christian homes practising specific morals and values, and anything outside of that was considered immoral or even ‘demonic’. However, what happens when you have a dual identity, and you embrace a bit of both?

On 29 June 2022, the University of the Free State Faculty of Theology presented a Table Talk Webinar with Dr Nomfundo Mlisa, titled ‘African Christianity: interconnections between religion, culture, and identity’. These webinars cover a variety of burning topics that deal with contentious issues across the country. Attendees emerged from various parts of the world, including Nigeria and Germany.

Dr Mlisa is a published author, qualified nurse, traditional healer, as well as preacher of the Word. Her talk was based on personal experiences of being Xhosa and being brought up as a member of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa in a strict Christian environment. She was on her journey to becoming a preacher when she realised that she needed to undergo the spiritual healing training (ukhuthwasa) and was faced with resistance from the church minister/s, forcing her to leave church because ukuthwasa was against the church policies.

Her journey has been challenging, because she only acknowledged her ancestral calling at the age of 42, following a series of occurrences that nearly cost her her children. Dr Mlisa hinted that, besides being against church policy, one of the reasons was that the Xhosa nation considered ukhuthwasa to be witchcraft due to the similarity in the pronunciation of words: ukhuthwasa, meaning undergoing spiritual training; ukuthwala, which is an ancient activity of gaining powers for wealth; and ukhuthakatha, meaning witchcraft.

“Rev Mabusela of the Methodist Church invited me back to the church and I was ordained as a reverend. However, my ordination was held at the East London Correctional Services, and it was then that I realised I was a prisoner of faith and tradition,” she said.

Is there a link between ukuthwasa and Christianity?

Besides the fact that philosophy could not prove the linkage, Dr Mlisa said that the link exists, but Christianity has strongly influenced Africans to integrate Christian values into their cultural value systems, as evidenced by various authors. This led to various people with spiritual calling disowning their cultural identities as well as their being.

“In Christianity, there are faith healers and prophets, whereas culturally, we have traditional healers; however, they have one objective, which is to heal the people. But because people wanted to accommodate their gifts in Christianity, such names were given. Furthermore, Christians recognise angels, while traditionally, ancestors are recognised,” she explained.

Looking into different practices in both the Traditional and Christian religions, they both have elements of training, ‘ukhuthwasa’. This is mainly because they all undergo different types of training under a senior person. A senior faith healer trains a junior, whereas a ‘gobela’ trains a traditional healer.

The society is also coming to accept all religions, with most people now wearing traditional healer beads everywhere, including work. There are also traditional healers who are modern doctors, demonstrating that these innate or hereditary abilities are a common language.

News Archive

Website going dormant from Friday 15 November at 17:00 until Monday 18 November at 07:00
2013-11-09

A modern, crisp new design for the UFS website will launch on Friday 15 November 2013.
 
The Division: Strategic Communication, in association with ICT Services, has gone to extraordinary lengths to equip the university with a trendy, user-friendly site in keeping with international standards. Focus groups, consisting of staff and students from across all three campuses, were closely involved in the design proses. This will result in a fully-endorsed and proudly-Kovsies website streaming across the globe.
 
Blackboard (https://learn.ufs.ac.za), GroupWise and the staff Intranet will not be affected by the switch-over.

PeopleSoft Student Self Service will still be available (https://studreg.ufs.ac.za/) as well as KovsieLife Student Self Service (on Bloemfontein Campus only) (http://kovsielife.ufs.ac.za/selfservice) for examination results.  
 
Please take note of the following webpages that will, however, not be available from Friday 15 November at 17:00 until Monday 18 November at 07:00 to users.
 
Webpages and systems that will be affected:
• UFS website
• Faculty and departmental webpages
• KovsieLife
• Community websites (Afras, Sasse, Vryfees, etc)
• Conferences
• Classified advertisements
• Podcasts
• Student Self Service
• Website administration systems (backend)
• BB Content
• SMS Gateway system
 
We can hardly wait to share this thrilling milestone in UFS history with you.  

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