In recent years Traditional Medicine has received a great deal of attention from not only social science researchers, but the health care community as well. In its definition of traditional medicine, the World Health Organization includes “spiritual therapies” in the list of practices understood as part of traditional medicine. The term “spiritual therapies” implies religious or ritualistic practices, which arguably would include some aspect of faith or belief. What is the content of such faith and how do its sources, norms and theological characteristics impact the diagnostic and treatment process in traditional medicine? Furthermore, what kind of and analysis might be helpful in researching these spiritual therapies? One way to do this is to investigate the faith and belief system of traditional medicine and inquire into the particular ways that the health of bodies and
the diseases that plague them are understood theologically in the context of traditional medicine. In this paper I argue for the consideration of medicine as a theological category. I will seek to answer the question of what sorts of methodologies and approaches are appropriate in theorizing about the faith and belief in traditional medicine? I argue that the analytical tools of the social scientists and cultural theorists should be engaged with the methods of theology for an interdisciplinary look at the faith claims of traditional healing strategies. Going a step further, I outline the structure of such a method concerning traditional medicine in particular. This is part of a larger work that actually applies such a methodology to looking at traditional medicine as practiced in Dakar, Senegal and the surrounding areas.