Victory in the Time of COVID: Defying a Pandemic at an Indian Megachurch

The global COVID-19 pandemic of 2020–2021 required significant ritual adjustment in churches worldwide, particularly the larger ones. It has also provoked theological reflection on the origins on the virus, as well as on what God’s Word had to say in response. This article investigates the adjustmen...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Bauman, Chad M. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Brill 2022
In: Social sciences and missions
Year: 2022, Volume: 35, Issue: 3/4, Pages: 237-273
Further subjects:B Assembliess of God
B Health
B pandémie
B victory
B Pandemic
B Théologie
B Prosperity Theology
B victoire
B India
B mégaéglises
B santé
B Megachurches
B assemblées de Dieu
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:The global COVID-19 pandemic of 2020–2021 required significant ritual adjustment in churches worldwide, particularly the larger ones. It has also provoked theological reflection on the origins on the virus, as well as on what God’s Word had to say in response. This article investigates the adjustments and reflections at one Indian megachurch, Bangalore’s Full Gospel Assembly of God (FGAG), with special reference to its utilization of a victory-oriented and defiant gospel of divine care, protection, and health. The question that animates this investigation is: Can a gospel of victory and health survive a global pandemic? The answer, somewhat counterintuitively (but in another sense – for those familiar with prosperity theology – not at all) is that it not only survives, but thrives. The article attempts to account for this thriving with reference to two distinctive characteristics of the soft version of the prosperity gospel that are manifest in FGAG’s victory gospel, both of which are inculcated through ritual repetition and performance: 1) Its paradoxically simultaneous insistence that the faithful are, by God, already victorious, and that miraculous reversals await those who aren’t, and 2) its boldly defiant response to evidence that all is not well..
ISSN:1874-8945
Contains:Enthalten in: Social sciences and missions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/18748945-bja10053