More Blessed to Give : A Pentecostal Mission to Bolivia in Anthropological Perspective

This is a study of a Nordic Pentecostal Mission to Bolivia. Its focus is the intersection between Mission and native church. The argument centres on the consequences, for this encounter, of the inevitable ageing of the parent system. Continuously a part of the social order back home, the missionary feels significantly different than the people surrounding him, a position predisposing him to teaching and to a reluctant participation in the inner life of the emerging church. These dispositions prevent the missionary from experiencing the vital spiritual renewal in the same social order as the convert. The two will, at best, establish parallel series of renewal and betterment. The asymmetrical relation is expressed also by a variety of social means, epitomized as the “blessed giving”. In a close equivalence between mission, teaching, and donating, the blessed giving tends to replace the spiritual experience as the driving force in the system.