The perils of ‘yo‐yo’ thinking: Positioning culture in Pentecostal healing

Abstract

Like other Pentecostals, the Lelet of central New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, are urged to reject significant aspects of their cultural tradition in order to become born-again Christians. Most Lelet Pentecostals say that all use of magic must be abandoned. I use the example of healing to show how commitments to break with the past are influenced by life's exigencies, such as illness. Pragmatic responses to illness may see people move between forms of therapy that are considered mutually exclusive-that is, between Christian healing and magic. Some judge this wavering derisively as "yo-yo" thinking. I suggest that a more subtle and open-minded appreciation of the Pentecostal stress on breaking with the past is to see this as situational-that is, as necessarily influenced by contingencies. Despite the rhetoric of absolute rupture being widely proclaimed, putting this into practice while negotiating the exigencies of life is a decidedly more complex and fluid matter. Lelet pragmatism sometimes stands in the way of the radical idealism of Pentecostalism.

Coercive Exchange: Magic, Agency and the Gift in a Melanesian Society

“…Compared to some parts of PNG (such as the highlands), the Lelet have a long history of contact with external influences, including the beliefs, institutions, and practices associated with the cash economy, Christianity, and colonial and postcolonial forms of government. Christianity has had a powerful influence in their lives and continues to reform their cultural horizons (Eves 2020a). Lelet life is dominated by the rhythms of cash cropping, subsistence agriculture, the weekly markets, and regular attendance at church.…”

Sanguma and scepticism: questioning witchcraft in the highlands of Papua New Guinea

“…Even those who are vocal in their opposition to witch‐hunts appear to allow that witchcraft exists when they say, ‘If you believe in them, then this something will come inside you’. Certainly, it has been reported elsewhere in PNG that the power of Christianity or magic to treat illness is dependent on committed and exclusive belief in either one or the other (Eves 2020 a ; 2020 b ).…”