This volume is devoted to the contemporary Nigerian prophet T. B. Joshua, whose healings and prophecies are famous far beyond the borders of Nigeria. The study analyses the impact of his use of the media upon the development of healing and prophecy. It deals with globalisation on the one hand and growing intimacy on the other, as well as with new forms of healing.

Alle in dieser Dissertation gemachten Analysen fokussieren auf einen zentralen Element für die Entstehung und die Entwicklung der Pfingstbewegung. Es handelt sich dabei um das Konzept, dass sich religiöse Erlösung auf die Erfahrung des sozialen Aufstiegs gegründet ist, insbesondere im Sinne der Integration unterintegrierter sozialen Gruppen in die Gesellschaft. Diese in den USA enstandende neue Religion befriegt vor allem die religiösen und sozialen Bedürfnisse derjenigen Bevolkerungsgruppen, die neu in der urbanen Welt der großen nordamerikanischen Städten angekommen waren. Es geht dabei also um diejenigen sozialen Schichten, die in der Peripherie dieser grossen Städte lebeten und die sozial, wirtschaftlichund ethnisch aus der Gesellschaft ausgeschlossen wurden. Im Anschluss daran analysieren wir auch, wie die gleichen sozialen und religiösen Bedürfnisse die Grundlagen für die Entwicklung der Pfingstbewegung in Lateinamerika darstellen – insbesondere in Brasilien. In diesem Land findet eine grosse Menge exkludierter Individuen, die meistens auch Bewohner städtischer Peripherie sind (was ihren modernen Charakter beweist), im Pentekostalismus das Versprechen einer Lösung für ihre Probleme, vor allem für die Sehensucht nach Integration in eine soziale Welt, an der sie vorher nicht teilnahmen. Dieses Integrationsversprechen hängt direkt mit der normativen Erwartung des sozialen Aufstiegs zusammen. Aus disem Bild kann man den Schluss ziehen, dass sich der Pentekostalismus als religiöses Phänomen dadurch auszeichnet, dass er die Versprechen der Moderne für die von der modernen Gesellschaften vergessenen Individuen aktualisiert. Mittes seiner religiösen Narrative verleiht der Petenkostalismus der Idee des sozialen Aufstiegs und damit auch der Hoffnung sozialer Inklusion exkludierter Individuen eine neue Kraft. Der Pentekostalismus nimmt auf diese Weise die Form einer christlichen Religion der Schwarzen, Mulatos, Armen und aller anderen Individuen an, deren Integration in die moderne Gesellschaft als problematisch erscheint. / All the analyses we have developed throughout this dissertation point to a central element in the emergence and development of Pentecostalism, i.e., its raw material – the promise of religious salvation – is based on the idea of social ascension, particularly the ascension related to the integration of sub-integrated social groups to the dynamics of society. The new religion that arose in the USA focused on the needs and social dramas that were specific of the newly arrived to the urban world of the large North-American cities, those who inhabited the periphery of these cities, those that were socially, economically, and ethnically excluded from the core of society. We also analyzed how the same social drama was the basis for the development of Pentecostalism in Latin America and, especially, in Brazil. In this country, a great mass of excluded individuals, also residents of urban peripheries (which proves the non-traditional and modern characteristic of these sectors), found in Pentecostalism the promises of answers to their dramas, mainly the anxiety to become integrated to a world in which they did not belong before. Such integration was embedded in the promise present in the modernity of social ascension. This scenario leads us to the conclusion that Pentecostalism was a religious discourse capable of taking the main promise of modernity to social groups or classes “forgotten” by modern society. Through a religious discourse, Pentecostalism fulfilled the notions of social mobility, and its consequent idea of individual ascension to the mass of people not yet fully integrated to the modern world, but living in it. Following, it became the Christian religion of blacks and mestizos, of the poor and all the others who felt out of place in that world. So the Pentecostalism became a religion of periphery par excellence.

The purpose of my thesis is to analyse sociological and theological reasons for formation of the Faith Church and also clarify the doctrinal difference from The Christian Fellowship Church in the Czech Republic. This thesis consists of four chapters. The first chapter presents the general characteristics of The Pentecostal movement and classifies The Christian Fellowship Church in the Czech Republic and The Church of Faith as a specific christian stream and movement. The second chapter focuses on historical context and circumstances in which The Church of Faith emerges and describes the ground for departure of this part of the church from their original organization Christian Fellowship Church in the Czech Republic. The next chapter deals with specific theological base of The Church of Faith, especially in the field of ecclesiology and namely perception of the authority in the church, demonology and anthropology, the importance of healing in the context of soteriology and characteristic concept of eschatology. The fourth chapter deals with the state registration process of the Christian Fellowship Church in the Slovak republic which gave the way to the start of the Church of Faith. It also deals with the difference between legal position of the new religious movements in the Czech and Slovak society.