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...

In Critical Christianity, Courtney Handman analyzes the complex and conflicting forms of sociality that Guhu-Samane Christians of rural Papua New Guinea privilege and celebrate as "the body of Christ." Within Guhu-Samane churches, processes of denominational schism--long relegated to the secular study of politics or identity--are moments of critique through which Christians constitute themselves and their social worlds. Far from being a practice of individualism, Protestantism offers local people ways to make social groups sacred units of critique. Bible translation, produced...

Praying and Preying offers one of the rare anthropological monographs on the Christian experience of contemporary Amazonian indigenous peoples, based on an ethnographic study of the relationship between the Wari', inhabitants of Brazilian Amazonia, and the Evangelical missionaries of the New Tribes Mission. VilaCa turns to a vast range of historical, ethnographic and mythological material related to both the Wari' and missionaries perspectives and the author's own ethnographic field notes from her more than 30-year involvement with the Wari' community. Developing a close dialogue...

Praying and Preying offers one of the rare anthropological monographs on the Christian experience of contemporary Amazonian indigenous peoples, based on an ethnographic study of the relationship between the Wari, inhabitants of Brazilian Amazonia, and the Evangelical missionaries of the New Tribes Mission. Vilaca turns to a vast range of historical, ethnographic and mythological material related to both the Wari and missionaries perspectives and the author s own ethnographic field notes from her more than 30-year involvement with the Wari community. Developing a close dialogue between...

To Be Cared For offers a unique view into the conceptual and moral world of slum-bound Dalits ("untouchables") in the South Indian city of Chennai. Focusing on the decision by many women to embrace locally specific forms of Pentecostal Christianity, Nathaniel Roberts challenges dominant anthropological understandings of religion as a matter of culture and identity, as well as Indian nationalist narratives of Christianity as a "foreign" ideology that disrupts local communities. Far from being a divisive force, conversion integrates the slum community--Christians and Hindus alike--by...

To Be Cared For offers a unique view into the conceptual and moral world of slum-bound Dalits ("untouchables") in the South Indian city of Chennai. Focusing on the decision by many women to embrace locally specific forms of Pentecostal Christianity, Nathaniel Roberts challenges dominant anthropological understandings of religion as a matter of culture and identity, as well as Indian nationalist narratives of Christianity as a "foreign" ideology that disrupts local communities. Far from being a divisive force, conversion integrates the slum community--Christians and Hindus alike--by...