Charismatic fundamentalism and orality

Abstract

This study of the Victory Churches of Canada International serves as an example of how potentially contradictory theological discourses can be reconciled in specific religious communities. The democracy and immanence of spirit characteristic of charismatic Christianity is combined with the absolutist understanding of belief that defines fundamentalism. The result is essentially "bound enchantment" - immanence within boundaries. Horizontally, Victory Christians are intellectually and morally fenced off from "the world" and what is satanic. Vertically, they are conjoined with the supernatural as the divine and the demonic are omnipresent. Orality, with its defining characteristics of ideological boundaries, the group's self conception of centrality, the fusion of the sacred and profane, the immanence of the supernatural, and the creative power of the spoken word, serves as a useful paradigm with which to explore this combination.