Realness through Mediating Body

After the end of the civil war in 1990, the Charismatic/Pentecostal (C/P) movement in Beirut spread across various Christian denominations. C/P believers narrated how Jesus became real to them via the experience of the Holy Spirit. The author explains this impression of realness through embodiment. Ritual practices like testimony and experience of divine agency are experienced as fullness within a post war society and are extended into the every day sphere. This ethnographic account represents the beginning research of C/P Christianity's emergence in the Middle East and its contribution to social change.

Dr Oleg Dik studied Protestant Theology, Religious and Cultural Studies in Germany and Lebanon and received his PhD in Religious Studies. He is a lecturer in Sociology of Religion at Humboldt University Berlin and Leipzig University and leads 'Batik', a Christian-intercultural community center in Berlin.