Spirits of Protestantism
Medicine, Healing, and Liberal Christianity
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Hardback
£59.00
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 9780520244283
Number of Pages: 348
Published: 14/07/2011
Width: 15.2 cm
Height: 22.9 cm
"Spirits of Protestantism" reveals how liberal Protestants went from being early-twentieth-century medical missionaries seeking to convert others through science and scripture, to becoming vocal critics of missionary arrogance who experimented with non-western healing modes such as Yoga and Reiki. Drawing on archival and ethnographic sources, Pamela E. Klassen shows how and why the very notion of healing within North America has been infused with a Protestant "supernatural liberalism." In the course of coming to their changing vision of healing, liberal Protestants became pioneers three times over: in the struggle against the cultural and medical pathologizing of homosexuality; in the critique of Christian missionary triumphalism; and, in the diffusion of an ever-more ubiquitous anthropology of "body, mind, and spirit." At a time when the political and anthropological significance of Christianity is being hotly debated, "Spirits of Protestantism" forcefully argues for a reconsideration of the historical legacies and cultural effects of liberal Protestantism, even for the anthropology of religion itself.
List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Healing Christians 1. Anthropologies of the Spiritual Body 2. The Gospel of Health and the Scientific Spirit 3. Protestant Experimentalists and the Energy of Love 4. Evil Spirits and the Queer Psyche in an Age of Anxiety 5. Ritual Proximity and the Healing of History Conclusion: Critical Condition Notes Archives Consulted Selected Bibliography Index
"A courageous and balanced treatise... A nuanced call for the careful analysis of the seemingly familiar." -- Willson Wills Somatosphere "A rich portrait of 20th century Protestant liberalism." -- Heather D. Curtis Religion "An exceptionally detailed, historically grounded and comprehensive account." -- Toomas Gross Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society