Faith Healing Ministries, Gender, and Poverty: Implications for Development in Africa

The rise of Tanzanian Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity has attracted adherents from far and wide, including members of mainstream churches. A significant number of women and men have joined various ministries, with some moving back and forth and hoping that the invisible spiritual powers vested in preachers would help them get rid of socio-economic predicaments. Notwithstanding the widespread impact, faith healing ministries in Tanzania remain a relatively new field, only attracting the attention of a handful of anthropologists from outside the country. In this chapter, we examine ways in which Pentecostal healing ministries and Charismatic renewal movements have responded to health pandemics and socio-economic and spiritual dilemmas. In the end, we demonstrate ways in which miraculous healing has had a bearing on shaping not only religious and public discourses but also gender and policy implications on pandemics in Tanzania.