ABSTRACT
Christian charismatic communities and churches are extremely diverse in their theology and ecclesiology, so any attempt to suggest a core ideology that might be generic for the movement would be rightly treated with some suspicion. This chapter suggests that the ideology expressed in and through contemporary Charismatic Renewal is in some ways configured around concepts that represent sublimated eroticism. It attempts to show how worship songs about God, packed with images and analogies of intimacy, immediacy, power and eroticism, lead to the particular forms of embodiment and somatic experience that is particular to aspects of contemporary Charismatic Renewal. The chapter offers a romantic and semantic framework to believers which ties in with the visions and analogies outlined earlier. Dionysian religion, with its roots in the pre-Aryan devotion to Shiva, has always been linked to sexual performance: a horned god, with worship typified by music, dance, prophecy and ecstatic rites.
