ABSTRACT
examines how Spiritual Churches’ symbiotic approach towards the political and spiritual lives of their parishioners morphed during the tumultuous decades of the 1930s to the 1950s. Spiritual leaders would use their healing enterprises to address the social, political, physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of people in New Orleans. On the one hand, healing served a political function, for it offered modes of resistance, transformation, and empowerment. On the other hand, as this chapter shows, healing played a significant role in the spiritual well-being of individuals. The dual function of healing, albeit in a different form, represents an extension of a symbiotic approach to reform initiated by Mother Anderson.
