Preserving a Worldview: Pentecostalism in the African Maps of the Universe

Articles Preserving a Worldview: Pentecostalism in the African Maps of the Universe Ogbu U. Kalu Leading Questions The recent explosion of Pentecostalism in Africa has attracted some measure of scholarly attention as an aspect of the shift of the center of Christianity from the North to the South. Two ancillary questions con- cern the reasons and nature of the shift and the implications for the global character of Christianity. Some have explained the phenomenon through the collapse of the state and the political economy of Africa; others have applied a conspiratorial theory that spies out the covert activities of the