Faith Healing, Migration and Gendered Conversions in Pentecostal Churches in Johannesburg

Abstract

This chapter explores how Pentecostal Churches understand, capitalise on and address issues of distress and emotional suffering among migrant populations in South Africa. More specifically, this work considers how, through their healing work, cultural notions and practices of gender are shaped by the church. Churches assist members in conceptualising the nature of their physical and emotional suffering and are central agents in the construction of meanings of illness and adversity. This chapter describes how religious interventions work in specific cultural contexts by assisting with migrants' need for healing in post-conflict situations. This work is concerned with the responses offered by churches to migrants in contexts of displacement, lack of documentation, poor living conditions and environments such as of South Africa where general xenophobic attitudes and violence prevail. The study looks at the experiences of migrant congregants and pastors in Turffontein, south of Johannesburg. The area has undergone a process of transformation along with successive migratory flows. Originally populated by Afrikaans, Jewish and Portuguese communities, in the post-apartheid period the area began to receive immigrants from various African countries. Along with these new migrant groups migrant-initiated churches proliferated, with the most numerous being Nigerian and Congolese Pentecostal churches. Twenty three in-depth interviews were conducted with both migrant congregants and pastors in these two churches (one Nigerian and one Congolese). In addition, participatory observation was conducted in order to better understand the processes of indoctrination and initiation that migrants-as well as local participants-undergo in order to be delivered and ultimately healed. This chapter examines the responses offered by these two churches to their migrant congregants in their search for healing. It specifically considers the relationship between the healing work conducted by the church and changes or continuities in gender notions and practices among migrant congregants. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)