Digital Spirituality as Paradigm Shift? Religious Change during the COVID-19 Epidemics in Brazil

Abstract

In the first part of this article we will deal with the impact of the digitization of religions in their aspects of loss of traditional authority and a greater possibility of syncretism and hybridization processes, a tendency that was already happening before the COVID-19 pandemic. Subsequently, general aspects of the digitization of religions in Brazil during the COVID-19 pandemic will be described and some quantitative data in this period will be presented. The data indicate increased spiritual practices during COVID-19 although a relative loss of institutional authority. Even though this phenomenon may be something temporary, these data indicate a secularization of this sphere of institutional meaning, with an even more acute displacement of the sphere of religious meaning to the private world. In a third part, we will deal with the specific cases of funerals and mourning, something that reaches an important core of the social function of religious institutions at this moment. In the final reflections we make a preliminary assessment of which aspects tend to remain in the future related to religious change promoted by digitalization even after the end of the pandemic.