Venezuelan Evangelical Digital Diaspora, Pandemics, and the Connective Power of Contemporary Worship Music
1
Bioengineering and Applied Biophysics Group, Simón Bolívar University, Caracas 89000, Venezuela
2
Entrecristianos, 28051 Madrid, Spain
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editors: Edward Foley and Stephen G. Parker
Religions 2022, 13(3), 212; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13030212
Received: 28 November 2021
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Revised: 30 January 2022
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Accepted: 25 February 2022
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Published: 2 March 2022
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Worship in a time of Pandemic: Fresh Possibilities and Troubling Inequalities)
During 2020–2021, the COVID-19 pandemics exacerbated the use of digital communication tools for the general population as well as for migrant and diasporic communities. Due to social distancing requirements, church activities had to be suspended or restricted, therefore, local congregations and denominations had to incorporate social media as part of their regular worship channels in an unprecedented way. At the same time, these new spaces opened an opportunity for diasporas to reconnect with their churches back home, and to participate in digital worship projects. In this paper, we study the case of the digital worship collective Adorando en Casa (AeC), which was started at the onset of the pandemics, producing several crowdsourced original musical compositions, uploaded in popular social media sites, and distributed via messaging apps. We focus on the reasons for participation of Venezuelan musicians and singers from different regions in the country, and from the large diaspora of Venezuelan Evangelicals. Additionally, we analyze the characteristics, structure, and theology of some of the songs recorded, to show how the concept of a digital diasporic spiritual consciousness is powerfully expressed through worship music.
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Keywords:
pandemics; contemporary worship; digital worship; COVID-19; coronamusic; digital diasporas; migration
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Mora, F.A.; García Martínez, E. Venezuelan Evangelical Digital Diaspora, Pandemics, and the Connective Power of Contemporary Worship Music. Religions 2022, 13, 212. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13030212
AMA Style
Mora FA, García Martínez E. Venezuelan Evangelical Digital Diaspora, Pandemics, and the Connective Power of Contemporary Worship Music. Religions. 2022; 13(3):212. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13030212
Chicago/Turabian StyleMora, Fernando A., and Enrique García Martínez. 2022. "Venezuelan Evangelical Digital Diaspora, Pandemics, and the Connective Power of Contemporary Worship Music" Religions 13, no. 3: 212. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13030212
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