A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Localizing and Acculturating the Global: Healing Rooms Prayer Service Network in Finland
Authors: Hovi Tuija
Publisher: The Donner Institute for Research in Religious and Cultural History
Publishing place: Turku
Publication year: 2015
Journal: Approaching Religion
Volume: 5
Issue: 1
First page : 79
Last page: 91
Number of pages: 13
Web address : http://ojs.abo.fi/index.php/ar/article/view/881
The article addresses the theme of accommodating an imported model of international religious practice into a national context. The case in question involves an intentional ’translation’ of an American Pentecostal concept of a lay-based prayer service into a Nordic, rather secularised Lutheran context. This recent newcomer into the Finnish religious field is the Healing Rooms network which is a predominantly charismatic Christian, globally expanded, interdenominational intercessory prayer service. This study of Healing Rooms is based on material compiled by means of ethnographic methods. According to the interviewees, the idea of a prayer clinic must be adjusted culturally and nationally, even though the basic function of the practice is the same everywhere. In Finland this means adjusting the service to fit a culture and society in which the mainline Lutheran Church has traditionally had simultaneously a distant and dominating role on the religious scene.