HIV/AIDS, Pentecostal churches, and the 'Joseph Generation' in Uganda

Introduction Uganda has been at the center of the AIDS epidemic in Africa. This fact has shaped the role that Christianity, and especially the growing Pentecostal movement, have assumed in [...]
In Kampala, Pentecostal churches have been filling the public space since 1986. The paper focuses on the transformation that Pentecostal churches have been experiencing in Uganda, with an increasing involvement in society. I discuss interactions between this process and changes in national strategies regarding HIV and AIDS prevention, and show how the concept of 'salvation' assumes renewed meanings in this context. I analyze young people's involvement in religious campaigns against AIDS, and the fact that this is linked to the Pentecostal discourse of the 'break with the past,' which in Uganda has found a new dimension in the rhetoric of a 'Joseph Generation,' charged with building a Christian country and opposed to the fathers' generation.