Death and Mourning Rituals in the South African Church: Towards a Biblical Model for Counselling Bereaved Families of Emmanuel Assemblies in Bolobedu South, Limpopo Province
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Johannesburg South African Theological Seminary
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Death is an inevitable occurrence that affect most human beings one way or another such that some people engage in several activities in response to its affects and to obtain spiritual healing or closure (Baloyi 2016, 201-216, Itsweni and Tshifhumulo 2018, 11705-11727). Among the Balobedu people of Bolobedu south in Limpopo province, South Africa, there were speculations about death and mourning rituals that bereaving members observed which left some who fellowshipped in Emmanuel Assemblies Church not sure as how to respond to the call of rituals. They used the Bible as their guide to evaluate the situation so that their faith would not be compromised. This gave birth to researching these rituals by purposefully sampling 39 participants from Ga-Motupa, Kgwekge, Relela, Morutjie and Motlhomeng, to establish the reality of the matter. The objective of the study was to investigate the death and mourning rituals that Balobedu people of Bolobedu south in Limpopo province, South Africa; performed with a view of formulating a biblical counselling model that can assist Emmanuel Assemblies church members residing in the same vicinity to deal with death-related rituals that directly need their engagements.
With an approved consent form signed by the participants, various one-on-one interviews, pre-arranged by the participants recruiter, using semi-structured questions translated into Khelobedu (a dialect of Balobedu People) were conducted to collect data after the permission from both the royal house in Khetlhakong and their respective headmen were obtained.
The research findings indicate that death and mourning rituals are performed by some nations around the globe, Balobedu included, to honour the deceased, to appease the dead and to obtain healing from the loss. The study also found that, Emmanuel members lack a biblical counselling model to assist them on matters related to death and mourning rituals. The researcher also proposed a biblical counselling model to Emmanuel leadership for adoption and use among their churches for them to obtain guidance in the event of loss. The model combines Magezi’s seven approaches of pastoral care and Steward’s three steps of counselling.
Keywords
Death in the Bible, Church, Counseling