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New Book

Pentecostals and the Body

Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion. Brill, 2017.

Edited by Michael Wilkinson and Peter Althouse

The intersection of religion, ritual, emotion, globalization, migration, sexuality, gender, race, and class, is especially insightful for researching Pentecostal notions of the body. Pentecostalism is well known for overt bodily expressions that includes kinesthetic worship with emotive music and sustained acts of prayer. Among Pentecostals there is considerable debate about bodies, the role of the Holy Spirit, possession of evil spirits, deliverance, exorcism, revival, and healing of bodies and emotions. Pentecostalism is identified as a religion on the move and so bodies are transformed in the context of globalization. Pentecostalism is also associated with notions of sexuality, gender, race and class where bodies are often liberated and limited. This volume evaluates these themes associated with contemporary research on the body.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Social Theory, Religion and the Body
 Michael Wilkinson and Peter Althouse

Part 1: Ritual, Emotion, and Experience

1 Pentecostalism, the Body, and Embodiment
 Michael Wilkinson
2 Emotional Regimes in the Embodiment of Charismatic Prayer
 Peter Althouse
3 Spiritual Property Rights to Bodily Practices: Pentecostal Views of Yoga and Meditation as Inviting Demonization
 Candy Gunther Brown
4 Worship Rituals, Discipline, and Pentecostal-Charismatic “Techniques du Corps” in the American Midwest
 Travis Warren Cooper
5 Embodied Gospel: The Materiality of Pentecostal Theology
 Wolfgang Vondey
6 Pentecostal Revivalism and the Body
 Stephen Hunt

Part 2: Globalization, Migration, and Meaning

7 Before Habitus: Embodied Indeterminacy in Black Atlantic Pentecostalism
 Devaka Premawardhana
8 Emotions and Spiritual Knowledge: Navigating (In)Stabilities in Migrant Initiated Churches
 Rafael Cazarin
9 Pentecostal Rituals, Human Wellbeing, and the Reshaping of African Migrants at Word Communication Ministries, Belgium
 Bosco Bangura
10 Spiritual Embodiment in Yoruba Pentecostalism in Southwestern Nigeria
 Ayokunle Olumuyiwa Omobowale and Olufikayo Kunle Oyelade

Part 3: Gender, Race, and Class

11 A Silence Like Thunder: Pastoral and Theological Responses of Australian Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches to lgbtq Individuals
 Mark Jennings
12 Maintaining Sexual Purity: Ritualized, Embodied, and Spatial Strategies among Neo-Charismatics in Stockholm
 Jessica Moberg
13 Body Limited: Belief and (Trans)Formations of the Body in a Pentecostal Roma Community
 Raluca Bianca Roman
14 A Hegemonic Masculinity: Ethos and Consumption in the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, Brazil
 Soraya Barreto Januário
15 Women and Pentecostalism in Zimbabwe: Negotiating Leadership in the Zimbabwe Assemblies of God ‘Forward in Faith’ (zaoga fif) Ministry, Harare
 Sandra Bhatasara, Rumbidzai Shamuyedova, Naume Zorodzai Choguya and Manase Kudzai Chiweshe
16 Contra-Deprivation: A Bourdieusian Analysis of the Production of Glossolalia as a Competitive Form of Religious Capital
 Erica M. Ramirez 

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