Anderson Blanton
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469623979
- eISBN:
- 9781469623993
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469623979.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
In this work, Anderson Blanton illuminates how prayer, faith, and healing are intertwined with technologies of sound reproduction and material culture in the charismatic Christian worship of southern ...
More
In this work, Anderson Blanton illuminates how prayer, faith, and healing are intertwined with technologies of sound reproduction and material culture in the charismatic Christian worship of southern Appalachia. From the radios used to broadcast prayer to the curative faith cloths circulated through the postal system, material objects known as spirit-matter have become essential since the 1940s, Blanton argues, to the Pentecostal community's understanding and performances of faith. Hittin' the Prayer Bones draws on Blanton's extensive site visits with church congregations, radio preachers and their listeners inside and outside the broadcasting studios, and more than thirty years of recorded charismatic worship made available to him by a small Christian radio station. In documenting the transformation and consecration of everyday objects through performances of communal worship, healing prayer, and chanted preaching, Blanton frames his ethnographic research in the historiography of faith healing and prayer, as well as theoretical models of materiality and transcendence. At the same time, his work affectingly conveys the feelings of horror, healing, and humor that are unleashed in practitioners as they experience, in their own words, the sacred, healing presence of the Holy Ghost.Less
In this work, Anderson Blanton illuminates how prayer, faith, and healing are intertwined with technologies of sound reproduction and material culture in the charismatic Christian worship of southern Appalachia. From the radios used to broadcast prayer to the curative faith cloths circulated through the postal system, material objects known as spirit-matter have become essential since the 1940s, Blanton argues, to the Pentecostal community's understanding and performances of faith. Hittin' the Prayer Bones draws on Blanton's extensive site visits with church congregations, radio preachers and their listeners inside and outside the broadcasting studios, and more than thirty years of recorded charismatic worship made available to him by a small Christian radio station. In documenting the transformation and consecration of everyday objects through performances of communal worship, healing prayer, and chanted preaching, Blanton frames his ethnographic research in the historiography of faith healing and prayer, as well as theoretical models of materiality and transcendence. At the same time, his work affectingly conveys the feelings of horror, healing, and humor that are unleashed in practitioners as they experience, in their own words, the sacred, healing presence of the Holy Ghost.
Anderson Blanton
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469623979
- eISBN:
- 9781469623993
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469623979.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
This chapter describes the miraculous power of the Holy Ghost and its particular mediations through the radio loudspeaker. Through this exploration of prayer translated through the radio apparatus, ...
More
This chapter describes the miraculous power of the Holy Ghost and its particular mediations through the radio loudspeaker. Through this exploration of prayer translated through the radio apparatus, this chapter also introduces key performances of charismatic worship and techniques of prayer that recur throughout the book. Articulating the phenomenon of “radio tactility” as an efficacious point of contact for the communication of healing virtue, this section moves comparatively between performances of divine communication in southern Appalachia and broader Pentecostal practices of the twentieth century. While grounded in the contemporary practice of curative radio prayer among charismatic communities in southern Appalachia, this chapter also recalls formative practices of faith during the Charismatic Revival of the early 1950s, when millions of listeners tuned in to Oral Roberts’s Healing Waters radio broadcast and were instructed to put their hands on the radio during the healing prayer.Less
This chapter describes the miraculous power of the Holy Ghost and its particular mediations through the radio loudspeaker. Through this exploration of prayer translated through the radio apparatus, this chapter also introduces key performances of charismatic worship and techniques of prayer that recur throughout the book. Articulating the phenomenon of “radio tactility” as an efficacious point of contact for the communication of healing virtue, this section moves comparatively between performances of divine communication in southern Appalachia and broader Pentecostal practices of the twentieth century. While grounded in the contemporary practice of curative radio prayer among charismatic communities in southern Appalachia, this chapter also recalls formative practices of faith during the Charismatic Revival of the early 1950s, when millions of listeners tuned in to Oral Roberts’s Healing Waters radio broadcast and were instructed to put their hands on the radio during the healing prayer.
Anderson Blanton
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469623979
- eISBN:
- 9781469623993
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469623979.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
Revisiting classic ethnological theories on the contagious transmission of force, this chapter explores the place of material objects in the performance of divine communication and the practice of ...
More
Revisiting classic ethnological theories on the contagious transmission of force, this chapter explores the place of material objects in the performance of divine communication and the practice of faith. Tracking between the devotional specificities of the practice of “standin’-in” within the context of southern Appalachia and the broader mass-mediated performances of healing prayer during the Charismatic Renewal, this section also articulates Oral Roberts’s famous notion of “the point of contact” as a physical conduit for the transmission of healing power.Less
Revisiting classic ethnological theories on the contagious transmission of force, this chapter explores the place of material objects in the performance of divine communication and the practice of faith. Tracking between the devotional specificities of the practice of “standin’-in” within the context of southern Appalachia and the broader mass-mediated performances of healing prayer during the Charismatic Renewal, this section also articulates Oral Roberts’s famous notion of “the point of contact” as a physical conduit for the transmission of healing power.
