When Karen switched churches, again on a recommendation, she found herself in another big conference room. The plump Chinese preacher worked himself into a lather, his face reddening, his voice growing pitchy. Then with no warning, the man leaped out of Mandarin into some other language. At the time, she guessed it was Italian. She wondered what happened. And then someone explained to her that the man had been inspired by God. He was speaking in tongues. A few weeks later the church invited another pastor, a white man, to come and talk to the congregation. He worked up to the same lather, speaking quickly in English, but instead of switching languages, he invited sick people up to the front of the room. He would heal them, he said, by putting his hands on them. To Karen, sitting in the back of the room, the performance was a relief. It wasn’t just Chinese people who were afflicted by this brand of insanity.
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