The Faith-healers of the Assemblies of God in Burkina Faso: Taking Responsibility for Diseases Related to “Living Together”

Abstract

The author shows that curing and healing services which are offered by the Assemblies of God Church (Pentecostal church) in Burkina Faso-a church which recruits mostly low-income urban dwellers and rural peasants-are based primarily on a therapeutic procedure that has two parts, which together are able to treat various ailments that are in turn connected to transformations occurring in the nature of the relations between people and their families, friends and neighbours, or between individuals and the various groups they belong to. The problem is to show that prayers for deliverance from demons, far from being reducible to a miraculous event, actually form part of a long conversion process. Through collaboration between pastors and certain faith-healers, a new therapeutic attitude arises, which is coherent, effective and well adapted to the current transformations of everyday lifeand more doctrinally mixed in its representations than the official Pentecostal position could admit.L'auteur montre que l'offre de guérison des Assemblées de Dieu du Burkina Faso (Eglise pentecôtiste)-qui recrutent essentiellement dans le monde populaire urbain et la paysannerie-renvoie avant tout à un dispositif thérapeutique composé de deux scènes en mesure de prendre en charge les troubles divers, liés aux transformations des rapports de l'individu avec son entourage dans ses différents réseaux d'appartenance. Il s'agit de montrer que la prière de délivrance des démons, loin de se réduire à un événement miraculeux, participe plutôt à un long processus de conversion. Au travers de la collaboration pragmatique entre des pasteurs et certains croyantsguérisseurs, surgit une posture thérapeutique originale, à savoir cohérente, efficace, adaptée aux transformations des cadres de vie, et plus métissée dans ses expressions que la doctrine officielle pentecôtiste ne le laisse entendre.Prayers for deliverance from demons-harmful spirits-have always been part of the ritual of the Assemblies of God in Burkina Faso. However, the practice of making these prayers as a group on a weekly basis occurred and spread only during the 1980s, at the same time as the appearance of the phenomenon of faith-healers, minor prophets on the margins of Pentecostal orthodoxy.

Dangerous neighbours: sorcery, conspicuous exchange and proximity among urban migrants in northern Mozambique

“…First, reorientation towards God makes Islamic reformists feel comparatively less concerned than others in Nampula City about sorcery attacks. Similar to what has been written about the growth of Pentecostalism in Africa (Freeman 2012;Laurent 2001;Marshall-Fratani 1998;Maxwell 1995;Meyer 1999; van de Kamp 2016), beliefs and practices associated with Islamic reformism work to cut the social ties through which sorcery travels, and undermine feelings of guilt about the origins of wealth and success. In this, it is especially appealing to upwardly mobile urban migrants such as Rajah and Jafar who fear the ill will and envy of less fortunate others in their social surroundings.…”