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Document Details : Title: Als ziende de onzienlijke Subtitle: Het pareidolische werkelijkheidsverstaan van het charismatisch evangelicalisme Author(s): VERSTEEG, Peter , ROELAND, Johan Journal: Tijdschrift voor Theologie Volume: 50 Issue: 4 Date: 2010 Pages: 416-430 DOI: 10.2143/TVT.50.4.3203451 Abstract : In this article, the authors use an analysis of a specific charismatic evangelical practice, called ministry, to discuss the pareidolic understanding of reality so typical of this type of religiosity. Ministry, here, is a type of communal prayer in which mental images play an important role. The conviction that mental images could be signs from God is intrinsic to this practice. This understanding of reality contrasts sharply with the modern, demystified understanding in which mental images are considered products of human imagination. It also contrasts with Protestantism's dominant iconoclastic tradition that distrusts the mediatory potential of statues and perceptual representations. In a closing section, the authors explore the social dimensions of charismatic evangelicalism's pareidolic understanding of reality. In one respect they draw attention to the potential of the corporality and the sensory that are so innate to charismatic evangelicalism and so critical of traditional Protestantism. In another, they demarcate the limits to pareidolic mediation in this type of religiosity, i.e. (1) the unavoidable immediacy and primacy of the notion of God's presence (2) the power of images and (3) the potentially undemocratic character of charismatic evangelicalism's organisation. |
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