Localising and acculturating the global: the Healing Rooms prayer service network in Finland

The article addresses the theme of accommodating an imported model of international religious practice into a national context. The case in question involves an intentional ’translation’ of an American Pentecostal concept of a lay-based prayer service into a Nordic, rather secularised Lutheran context. This recent newcomer into the Finnish religious field is the Healing Rooms network which is a predominantly charismatic Christian, globally expanded, interdenominational intercessory prayer service. This study of Healing Rooms is based on material compiled by means of ethnographic methods. According to the interviewees, the idea of a prayer clinic must be adjusted culturally and nationally, even though the basic function of the practice is the same everywhere. In Finland this means adjusting the service to fit a culture and society in which the mainline Lutheran Church has traditionally had simultaneously a distant and dominating role on the religious scene.