Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing

Candy Gunther Brown

Feb 2011 · Oxford University Press

About this ebook

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.

Ratings and reviews

Well I want to read this book. I like being Pentecostal my self for my latin church Monte Sinai. I like how they believe can pray to God any where for forgiveness and he forgives any sin. It has been such a blessing for me the past two years even tho my mom don't believe in it, and my dad dont' believe in god. I tryed to get them and my brother to go. Im kind'a forsure I'll still be pentecostal for a very long time. And i woulden't plan on going some place ells even though im also a Cathlice.

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.