"Healing Requires Faith": the Understanding of Faith in Faith-Healing Practices in the Awakening Movement in Madagascar

Building on a fieldwork consisting of interviews and participant observation with those designated mpiandry (shepherds) in the Malagasy Lutheran Church, this article investigates the place of faith in their faith-healing practices. It is an empirical contribution where the shepherds' understandings of faith are explored. The theoretical lenses for analysis and discussion are based on lived theology as an interpretative approach to the shepherds' understanding and communication of faith in the context of their healing practices, and on traditional definitions of faith in Christian theology. While their understanding resembles these traditional definitions of Christian faith, their communication of this faith according to their lived theology present somewhat conflicting statements, for example, at the same time claiming that faith is necessary for healing and that faith may come after the healing has taken place.