SECULARISM AND PENTECOSTALISM By Effiong Joseph Udo, Doctoral student in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State, Nigeria. ABSTRACT Whereas Secularism may be variously defined, it very simply may be described as any movement in society directed away from otherworldliness to life on earth. Sometimes this movement has expressed itself as a complete denial of God’s presence in the world, with a definition of the humanum in such a way that humankind is the beginning and end of creation. At other times, it has been seen as a movement, which may not necessarily reject God, but still directs human heart and concerns away from that which cannot be seen or scientifically experimented to that which can be seen or so experimented. From the earliest moments of the history of Christianity, through the various stages of its life, the Christian church has encountered the secular movements of every age in different ways. This approach is testified to by the clear histories of the apologists, the medieval scholastics, the Reformers, the movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the social gospel of the twentieth century and, especially the ecumenical encounters pointed out as early as the World Missionary Council meeting at Jerusalem in 1928, at Whitby, Ontario in 1941, at the Church and Society meeting at Geneva in 1966 and the fourth Assembly of the WCC at Uppsala, Sweden in 1968, to mention but a few. Sometimes the church has acted admirably through all these secular influences but sometimes it has acted questionably. Many times, the church has been conscious to discern its own “worldliness” with respect to these secular forces but at other times it has failed to see how much its life and mission has been shaped by secular ideologies. One such area in which the church has not been sufficiently careful in understanding the depth of involvement with secularism is in the Pentecostal/ Charismatic movement that began in the early twentieth century but that has become a fundamental force in the Christianity of Africa, especially Nigeria. Many in the Pentecostal/ Charismatic movement have come to identify God’s blessings with material prosperity and healing from ailments. The ways in w hich these concerns of the Pentecostal/ Charismatic movement have affected African Pentecostalism have not been sufficiently pursued. African core values of simplicity, frugality, community, respect for elders, morality, hard work, dignity of labor, to mention but a few have been significantly reshaped and remodeled to make the Pentecostal/ Charismatic offers relevant to the faith of worshipers. And this is with the powerful instruments of colonialism, neo-colonialism, westernization, capitalism, globalization, and empire. Pentecostalism has seriously secularized African traditional values through all of these means. M ost interesting is the way in which these values so secularlized have found hermeneutical justifications as the will of God, over against traditional sensitivities. The nature of the Christian faith and the activities of the church have been greatly re-shaped by these values in ways that seem not to be in