When Healing Fails Heilserwartungen und Irritationen in drei christlichen Kirchen

Abstract

This article summarises the central questions and findings of a collaborative research project entitled When Healing Fails and also serves as a framework for the case studies presented in this special issue. The guiding research interest arose from the question of how Christians deal with expectations of healing, what they mean by this and, in particular, how they deal with possible disappointments. Drawing on the theory of cognitive dissonance (Festinger), we was asked whether expectations of healing can cause irritation and how these are communicatively absorbed and processed. The focus was on collective interpretations rather than individual coping strategies. The project studied three different Christian churches on three continents. On the one hand, the results document the empirical breadth of the concept of healing and the possibilities of “failed” healing. On the other hand, we show that the issue of non-healing does not only lead to doubts about faith, but is also creatively integrated into everyday practice and thus becomes an integral part of lived religion.