Language, Charisma, and Creativity: Ritual Life in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal

Contemporary Anthropology of Religion

by Thomas J. Csordas

Thomas Csordas's eloquent analysis of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, part of the contemporary cultural and media phenomenon known as conservative Christianity, embraces one of the primary charges of anthropology as a to stimulate critical reflection by making the exotic seem familiar and the familiar appear strange. In contrast to the portrayal of the distant cultural 'other' in ethnographic studies of tribal societies, this book shows that people who might be regarded by some as 'religious eccentrics' are quite comprehensible in terms of contemporary culture, while at the same time people who might be anyone's neighbors in fact inhabit a profoundly distinct world of experience. This new work makes an original, important contribution to anthropology, sociology, studies of religion and ritual, cultural phenomenology, linguistic-semiotic and rhetorical studies, the multidisciplinary study of social movements, and American Studies.

344 pages, Paperback

First published February 25, 1997

About the author

Dr. Thomas Csordas is an anthropologist whose principal interests are in medical and psychological anthropology, comparative religion, anthropological theory, cultural phenomenology and embodiment, globalization and social change, language and culture. He has conducted ethnographic research with Charismatic Catholics, Navajo Indians, and adolescents in the American Southwest on topics including therapeutic process in religious healing, ritual language and creativity, sensory imagery, self transformation, techniques of the body, causal reasoning about illness, and the experience of psychiatric inpatients.