Engaging with Social Media to Spread the Gospel in Pandemic Times Gitanos, Christianity and the Digital World

This article engages with sociological and anthropological conversations about the digital experiences of cultural and religious minorities during the COVID-19 pandemic by investigating how some Pentecostal Gitanos seized the online world to spread the Gospel in Spain. The article features two ethnographic studies of my Pentecostal Gitano interlocutors. Modalities of digital religious engagement analyzed include testimonies, WhatsApp broadcast lists, praise songs, and praying. The article's main argument is that the pandemic created a social media-enabled window of opportunity for some Gitano believers to reach out to new potential converts and claim online spaces for God. Extensive involvement in social media activities by Pentecostal Gitanos may also be understood as a tool to challenge and question an increasingly secular Spanish society that, during the pandemic, was perceived as dismissive of the spiritual aspects shaping the development of the global health crisis.