Profetkallsforståelsen i Bedehusland

– profetkallet som modell for misjonærkallet

Abstract

In January 2024, the podcast “Misjonærbarna” by and with Øystein Stene was published on Fabel, and the understanding of the missionary calling in the Norwegian lay and mission movement once again became the subject of critical attention. This article contributes to shedding further light on the understanding of the missionary calling in the Norwegian lay and mission movement between 1945 and around the turn of the millennium. The article’s starting point is the tradition in this movement of using prophetic call stories and texts about the missionary calling, thus allowing the prophetic call to serve as a model for the missionary calling. Against this background, an important question arises: What kind of understanding of the prophetic call was provided as a model for the missionary calling? In this article, I attempt to answer this question by examining the understanding of the prophetic call as expressed in the reception of prophetic call stories and texts in a selection of relevant books published by Lunde, Luther, and other similar publishers during the specified period. My findings indicate an understanding of the calling where the experience of the call plays a crucial role and where this experience is also understood to have a very specific character. Central elements include the experience of compulsion, the struggle of the call, and the impossibility of saying “no.”