To Örebro University

I artikeln diskuteras hur man i en pingstkarismatisk kontext kan pröva predikningar och skydda sig mot förkunnelse som avviker från etablerade läror. Artikeln tar sin utgångspunkt i två studier av förkunnelsen i pingstförsamlingen i Knutby, i empiriska studier av pingstpastorers förkunnelse och i studier av så kallad pentekostal hermeneutik. Ett första möjligt svar på den angivna frågan är att predikanter bör ägna sig åt textutläggande förkunnelse baserad på goda exegetiska studier, med genomskinlig och rationell metod. Problemet är emellertid att förkunnare i en pingstkarismatisk tradition sällan använder sig av denna metod. Detta förklaras i artikeln av att de ”gör något annat” och att deras metod är kongenial med detta ”andra” syfte, som tycks regleras av ett slags ”rule of faith”. Hur denna preciseras och upprätthålls är däremot inte helt klart. Ett annat möjligt svar är att församlingen gemensamt ska pröva förkunnelsen. Artikelförfattaren uppfattar att denna prövning i Pingströrelsen skett i predikantgemenskapen snarare än i den lokala församlingen.

This article addresses two subjects relating to the topic of this issue of Scandinavian Journal of History from a 'difference approach' in narratology. This means that we assume that words like 'narrative' and 'fiction' are used to denote different things and that it is important to distinguish between these uses. We also assume that narrative texts that share similar surface structures can still 'do' different things and are approached differently by readers. The first issue we focus on concerns history writing and narrative. We are especially interested in the discussion about the distinction between narrative history writing and literary fiction. When discussing this issue, we distinguish between different uses of terms like 'narrative', 'fictiveness', and 'fiction'. The second issue concerns the application of narratology as a method in the analysis of oral and written texts. We suggest that narratological concepts like narrator and perspective do not have the same denotation in the analysis of literary fiction as in the analysis of non-fictional narratives, and hence that narratology with its many concepts cannot be applied indiscriminately. In the discussion of these issues, we refer to factual and fictional written and oral texts concerned with migration.

Swedish Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal churches have, since the 1990s, started elementary schools. In this study, we examine theological issues that this new ‘practice’ brings about or makes visible. We have performed semi-structured interviews with church and school leaders, as well as focus group interviews with staff at three schools. In our analysis, we note that the aim of the schools is not to convert pupils but to create a certain culture and thereby to develop good people. These schools do not have other core values or different aims than public schools but describe these values and aims as Christian. However, the informants believe that they have better tools with which to accomplish these values and aims. We suggest that the informants assume an ethics that focus on values such as individual freedom, tolerance, and love, that conversion is not regarded as a requisite to a good life, and that explicit religious activities are placed in the private sector. These assumptions are not, we argue, seen as new, or caused by the engagement in elementary schools; rather they are regarded as ongoing ‘changes’ in the churches under consideration here that become visible in this praxis.

In the article we discuss the ambiguous view of the body in Christian tradition, focusing on the biblical texts and St. Augustine’s Confessions. We suggest that there is a tension in the view of humans in these texts, which by time evolves into a two- or three-part division of man into spirit, soul, and body. As a result, the body or ‘flesh’ has often been regarded as a constraint or burden that prevents people from living the life they were meant to live. We argue, however, that the view of the body in the Bible and in Christian tradition is not unequivocal. The body can appear as a place for temptation and suffering, but it is also God’s creation, the place where the earthly and the divine meet. This results in a fragile and unstable position for the body, which also applies to the two other bodies we discuss in the article: the biblical texts and the Christian church. We also suggest that the conflict depicted in the texts is not primarily between the spiritual and the material. The conflict is rather ethical, social, and eschatological. People are thus supposed to respond to God’s acts by forming a new way of living their life in the body.

In this article I present a study of Swedish Pentecostal preachers’ interpretations and applications of biblical texts. The study is based on 19 sermons that were published on the website"Söndag hela veckan”, January 19, 2020, by churches with “Pingst” (Pentecostal) in theirname. The aim of the study was to contribute to the field of Pentecostal hermeneutics throughan analysis of interpretative patterns in present day preachers’ sermons. The study shows thatthe preachers address a putative desire for a more devoted Christian life and that they do notpractice exegetics in the sense of making historical readings searching for the original authors’ intention. Instead they apply the texts to the present here and now, thereby bringing thetexts from them to us. This is done by means of generalizations, abstractions, and analogies inthe form of parables and narratives. In this way the studied preachers endeavor to encourageand challenge their listeners to continue searching for the richer Christian life they long for. Inrelation to previous studies, I claim that the studied sermons constitute a special act of interpretation that cannot be compared with academic exegetics. I also suggest that the hermeneutics in the sermons cannot be described as narrative or, for example, poststructuralist. Thereare some marginal similarities with interpretations of fiction, but the sermons can on thewhole be described as “a distinctive interpretive activity”. The message of the sermons is consistent with previous descriptions of Pentecostal theology, except that the preachers do notemphasize the story of the Pentecostal movement and, more remarkably, that traditional eschatology hardly has any place in the sermons