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Title Touched by the Spirit. Converting the senses in a Ghanaian charismatic church
Full text http://hdl.handle.net/1871/36125
Date 2011
Author(s) Witte, M. de
Abstract This article discusses the bodily mass reproduction of divine touch in Ghanaian charismatic Pentecostalism and argues for an understanding of conversion as an ongoing bodily process that 'tunes' the senses to specific sensory experiences. Presenting a case study of the International Central Gospel Church in Accra, it asks how the church's explicit appeal to the body relates to its strong suspicion of bodily mediation and its ideology of conversion as an inner transformation of the spirit and only secondarily of the body. It shows that the learning of church doctrine that grounds born-again subjectivity in spontaneous and immediate experiences of being touched by the Holy Spirit goes together with repeated performance and gradual embodiment of sensory and bodily 'formats' that evoke such experiences, but also raise concerns about their authenticity.
Subject(s) Sociaal Culturele wetenschappen
Language eng
Relation 10.1080/00141844.2011.620711
Type of publication Article / Letter to editor; Scientific Publ (refereed); Journal Articles
Source 76; Ethnos; 489; 509; 4
Identifier Ethnos, 76(4), 489-509; 00141844; 267796
Repository Amsterdam - VU University of Amsterdam
Added to C-A: 2012-06-19;07:55:15