Leonardo Marcondes Alves

This article investigates the concept of hospitality (xenia) in the ancient Mediterranean world and its relevance to contemporary migrant communities. To bridge the gap between ancient texts and modern experiences, we utilize a combined lens of contextual biblical hermeneutics and migration theory to analyze the Parable of the Returning Son (Luke 15:11–32), highlighting the inherent tensions and complexities of welcoming the stranger. Ethnographic research among Latin Pentecostal migrant congregations in the Nordic countries reveals how these communities embody xenia through tangible acts of welcome, risk-taking, and prodigal hospitality. This analysis demonstrates the vital role of hospitality in fostering community building within contexts of mobility. Furthermore, the concept of xenia helps address the limitations of applying modern migration theories directly to ancient contexts by providing a framework for understanding the continuity and evolution of hospitality practices across time and cultures.

The triad of Spirit, Word, and Community is a model that often represents Pentecostal hermeneutics. Focusing on the Word—a particularly elusive term for the Pentecostal hermeneutics—this study suggests some insights from an ethnography among Latin Pentecostal networks in the Nordic countries. Despite holding the Word with high regard, it exists as an “unbound Bible.” The Word is multiform: the Bible as an artifact, the relational divine agent, and a message. Many interpretative practices shape and limit the content of this unbound Bible. These interpretative practices include an analogical narrative reading that associates migration stories with biblical content, transnational and multilingual contexts, and a fragmentary and recursive reconfiguring of biblical texts for proper occasions. This study contributes to understanding migrant hermeneutics and discusses the Pentecostal triadic model of Spirit, Word, and Community.

Migration from Portuguese and Spanish-speaking countries has produced over two hundred Evangelical/Pentecostal congregations in the Nordic region during the early twenty-first century. These churches attract people of diverse backgrounds, demanding ongoing negotiations to keep their distinctive existence. I argue that their existence is owed to shared interpretative practices of the Bible and migration experiences, shaping each other, and forming interpretive communities. Based on an ethnographic investigation, five significant themes characterize Latin congregations in the Nordics as interpretive communities, 1) family worship, 2) incubating churches, 3) intercultural families, 4) transnational connection, and 5) hermeneutics of prophecy. These close-knit, connected, and family-like congregations represent a form of migrant self-theologizing for a Christian witness in a pluralistic Nordic region.

Resenha do livro Walking on the pages of the Word of God: self, land, and text among Evangelical volunteers in Jerusalem, de Aron Engeberg, editado em 2020.