Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing

by Candy Gunther Brown

Overview

Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity is a global phenomenon that comprises a quarter of the world's two billion Christians and is growing rapidly. This volume reveals that the primary appeal of pentecostalism worldwide is as a religion of healing. Contrary to popular stereotypes of flamboyant, fraudulent, anti-medical "faith healing" televangelists who preach a materialistic, "health and wealth" gospel, handle serpents, or sensationally "exorcize" demons, this book offers a more nuanced portrait. The collected essays illumine local variations, hybridities, and tensions in practices on six continents, and depict the extent of human suffering and powerlessness experienced by people everywhere and the attractiveness to many of a global religious movement that promises material relief by invoking spiritual resources.

This is the first book of its kind. Achieving the twin goals of thick description and comparative analysis of global practices is best achieved by bringing area experts into conversation. This volume's distinguished, international team of contributors includes sociologists, anthropologists, historians, political scientists, theologians, and religious studies scholars from North America, Europe, and Africa. Read together, these essays set the agenda for a new program of scholarly inquiry into some of the largest forces of change at work in the world today-globalization, pentecostalism, and healing-each of which is extremely powerful in itself and which together are reshaping our world in vastly significant ways.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195393415
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/24/2011
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	424
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Candy Gunther Brown received her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2000. She is an associate professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University, and the author of The Word in the World: Evangelical Writing, Publishing, and Reading in America, 1789-1880.

Table of Contents

Contributors
Foreword, by Harvey Cox
Introduction: Pentecostalism and the Globalization of Illness and Healing, by Candy Gunther Brown

Part I. Europe and North America
1. The Global Character of Nineteenth-Century Divine Healing, by Heather D. Curtis
2. Why Health and Wealth?: Dimensions of Prosperity among Swedish Charismatics, by Simon Coleman
3. Material Salvation: Healing, Deliverance, and "Breakthrough" in African Migrant Churches in Germany, by Claudia Währisch-Oblau
4. Blessed Bodies: Healing within the African American Faith Movement, by Catherine Bowler
5. Jesus as the Great Physician: Pentecostal Native North Americans within the Assemblies of God and New Understandings of Pentecostal Healing, by Angela Tarango

Part II. Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Borderlands
6. Latino Pentecostal Healing in the North American Borderlands, by Gastón Espinosa
7. Santidad, Salvación, Sanidad, Liberación: The Word of Faith Movement among Twenty-First Century Latina/o Pentecostals, by Arlene Sánchez Walsh
8. Exorcising the Demons of Deprivation: Divine Healing and Conversion in Brazilian Pentecostalism, by R. Andrew Chesnut
9. The Salve of Divine Healing: Essential Rituals for Survival among Working-Class Pentecostals in Bogotá, Colombia, by Rebecca Pierce Bomann
10. Learning from the Master: Carlos Annacondia and the Standardization of Pentecostal Practices in and beyond Argentina, by Matthew Marostica

Part III. Africa and Asia
11. New Wine in an Old Wine Bottle?: Charismatic Healing in the Mainline Churches in Ghana, by Cephas N. Omenyo
12. Healing in African Pentecostalism: The "Victorious Living" of David Oyedepo, by Paul Gifford
13. Re-enchanted: Divine Healing in Korean Protestantism, by Sean C. Kim
14. Miracle Healing and Exorcism in South Indian Pentecostalism, by Michael Bergunder
15. Divine Healing and the Growth of Practical Christianity in China, by Gotthard Oblau

Part IV. Global Crossings
16. Catholic Charismatic Healing in Global Perspective: The Cases of India, Brazil, and Nigeria, by Thomas J. Csordas
17. Global Awakenings: Divine Healing Networks and Global Community in North America, Brazil, Mozambique, and Beyond, by Candy Gunther Brown

Afterword, by Candy Gunther Brown
Index

Editorial Reviews

"There can now be no doubt that Pentecostal-Charismatic healing will continue to flower all over the world. It is something no thoughtful person can afford to ignore. We need careful, accurate, empathic, and unprejudiced studies of this reality in all its multitudinous expressions, including healing. And this volume provides the gold standard against which all future efforts will have to be judged."— Harvey G. Cox, Jr., Hollis Research Professor of Divinity, Harvard University

"The text demonstrates unequivocally that 'Charismatic-Pentecostalism' proves 'feeling is believing.' The book is foundational without antecedent or peer, possessing broad appeal for students and scholars of religion."—Religious Studies Review

Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing is an invaluable contribution to the field of religious studies. The book is highly informative and rich in descriptive detail. The diversity of its contributors...makes for a highly readable text that will appeal to a wide range of interests."—Religion

"The care that Candy Gunther Brown took in author selection and editing is evident in this fascinating and insightful volume...I am certain this book will prove an invaluable resource to scholars and students of all Christian traditions, indeed anyone interested in healing, globalization, or mission."—Pneuma

From the Publisher