A faith healing process of the Pentecostals takes in many forms to alleviate the afflictions for the sufferers. The Pentecostals have a holistic concept of the sick; there are three distinctive, and yet very closely interrelated types of afflictions: first, physical healing of bodily illness; second, inner healing of emotional illness and distress; third, deliverance from the adverse effects of demons or evil spirits. These distinctions have to be understood in the context of the Pentecostal principles, which integrate “all aspects of the person, conceived as a tripartite composite of body, mind, and spirit.”
1. Physical healing: physical healing is the simplest form of healing. More often than not, people come to the Pentecostal pastors when physical afflictions are not alleviated by contemporary medicine. Physical illness can be attributed to biomedical causes. Healing ministers lay on their hands and pray for relief for the supplicant.
2. Inner healing: Inner healing is a bit more complicated as it attempts to “[remove] the effects of a particular life trauma, or it may be a review and reinterpretation of an individual’s entire life history in light of the “healing presence of Jesus” (Csordas 1988, 123). Emotional distress or psychological disorder are both targets of inner healing.
3. Deliverance: Deliverance is the most unique and complicated type of healing, which aims to relieve the petitioner from oppression by one or many evil spirits. As understood in the doctrine of the Pentecostals, all types of afflictions are the result of spiritual warfare between evil and God, and challenging and overcoming spiritual affliction can lead to a closer relationship with God. The Pentecostals distinguish “between demonic possession, in which a demon takes total control of a person’s faculties, and lesser forms of influence in which demons do not gain complete control, but are regarded as having a detrimental effect on the person’s life and spiritual growth” (Csordas 1994, 41). This type of affliction is considered the result of “spiritual warfare”; overcoming this spiritual obstacle would lead to spiritual growth, which is what the Pentecostal ultimately desires to achieve. The spiritual affliction is often revealed by a healer or a supplicant through “the uncontrollable persistence of sins or negative forms of thought, emotion, and behavior” (Csordas 1994, 41). This sign leads a healing minister to identify one’s affliction and pray constantly for him/her with their hands on the body of a supplicant.
Even though there are three distinctive parts in the therapeutic processes, the Pentecostal ministers recognize the importance of all three forms in varying combinations (Csordas 1998, 42). Inner affliction tends to generate physical affliction, which ultimately challenges the relationship between the individual and God. These interconnections amongst three genres require more than curing superficial symptoms of a patient; the Pentecostal ministers take a holistic approach and attempt to cure all. Some scholars argue that there is a fourth genre called “Spiritual healing,” which seems like deliverance (Csordas 1998, 42); however, unlike deliverance, “[Spiritual healing] has not elaborated content with respect to the spiritual component of the tripartite person, but is residually concerned with the general well-being of the soul” (Csordas 1998, 42). These four genres have depicted the afflictions that the Pentecostals aim to heal.
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