Simultaneous Interpreting in a Pentecostal Church

Abstract

This chapter offers a practitioner’s perspective to the simultaneous interpreting of weekly services in a Finnish Pentecostal church, carried out by volunteer church members. It describes how the denominational context and its theological traditions affect the social meanings attached to the interpreting practice. These meanings are explored through the concepts of the priesthood of all believers and personal religious experience: believing that the Holy Spirit empowers every member to serve the church motivates interpreters to perform a cognitively taxing activity and leads the interpreters to see themselves as ‘servants’ of God, equal to other participants in their ability to contribute to corporate worship. What is seen as sacred in this denominational context is the collective and individual encounter with God through active participation in the church service. Interpreting both enables this encounter for non-Finnish-speaking participants and becomes a site for interpreters themselves to encounter God.