Pain, power, paradox: How is healing prayer practiced and experienced as a negotiation of faith, vulnerability, and divine love in congregational life?
Hanne Therese Loftesnes
Ph.d.-kandidat
Prosjektperiode
September 2018–desember 2027
Veiledere
- Professor Anne Austad, VID vitenskapelige høgskole
- Professor Hans Austnaberg, VID vitenskapelige høgskole
Om prosjektet
My project is a PhD project in practical theology that explores how healing prayer is practiced and experienced in two Norwegian Lutheran congregations. Through qualitative fieldwork—including interviews and participant observation—the project investigates how individuals navigate the tension between faith in divine intervention and life’s inherent vulnerability, and how healing prayer may be experienced as an expression of God’s love within the congregation.
The study draws on insights from both prayer participants and practitioners. The research also considers how differing lived theologies shape local understandings of healing prayer. Overall, the project examines how these practices function as spaces for negotiating belief, vulnerability, and divine presence in everyday faith life.
Bakgrunn
Cand.theol., School of Mission and Theology, Stavanger, Spring 2012