The political (or social) gospel, as I wrote in a recent analysis for Labirintul Magazin, has a painful and long history that bears the stigma of human suffering in the face of the deprivation of basic human rights. The gospel is not an ordinary song that gathers believers to church on Saturday. Initially, it was a song that allowed slaves to find themselves, a pacifist weapon against racism and intolerance in the United States of America, a tool for mobilizing black people in search of their socio-political rights. After World War II, Martin Luther King would use the Gospel to demand some fundamental rights for the black population in the context of racial segregation. The Gospel becomes a socio-political symbol of the struggle against governmental, state and public bodies, against repressions that limit basic civil liberties. Over time, the political gospel turns into a phenomenon characteristic of the secular world. He puts on the garb of political militancy through the Gospel.

Michaela-Alexandra Tudor is PhD, University Professor, Specialist in Media, Politics and Religion, Université Paul Valery Montpellier 3, France. Media consultant for La Deutsche Welle, Le Nouveau Montpellier, Regards protestants, France 24, Le Canard Enchainé, TVRi, 20minutes, etc.

If the political gospel was originally a a form of political expression through the use of Christian music from neo-Protestant churches by religious singers to communicate the need for freedom and socio-political equality and demand rights in unequal social contexts, over time the relationship changed, becoming weapons for attracting votes and electoral services. Politics in its classical and modern forms of organization, from the political party to militant associations and non-governmental organizations outside the churches or in addition to them and more or less religious social media influencers, began to use it as a tool of political influence and propaganda. Today, the political gospel is widely used and presented an electoral strategy that political parties and other militant organizations (not necessarily religious) use in the secular world for political visibility and power. From this point of view, we observe in Romania, approaching 2024, an election year that will combine 4 electoral rounds of extremely important importance for the country’s fate – local, parliamentary, European and presidential elections – some political evangelical campaigns with electoral goals, in which actors are even state institutions, churches (neo-Protestant and not only!), militant associations, religious influential persons, etc.

Recently, the Romanian diaspora organized two similar events. I already wrote about one of them here. We remind you that this is an event organized by the Embassy of Romania in the United States of America with the participation of the Bucharest National Opera Orchestra and Procred Music, broadcast by the media partner Antena 3 CNN on September 10, 2023 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, the federal capital of the United States of America (U.S. ). The concert was called Great grace. Celebrating religious freedom. Romanian tribute to America. I have presented how this model of political gospel created in Romania, under the guise of promoting freedom of religion and conscience, is a form of electoral struggle that is financially supported even by the institution that represents the Romanian state in the US and promotes an electoral agenda that it directly and indirectly serves the current ruling coalition.

Also in the neo-Protestant context, during November 25-26, another manifestation of the political gospel flooded diaspora social media groups and networks. This time in the form of a festival called “Festival of Romanian Religious Music and Poetry from Spain” under the auspices of the Division for Romanians Everywhere, organized in the diaspora community of Seventh-day Adventist Christians. The participants are choirs of the extended diaspora from Spain, France, Austria…, Adventist pastors (winners of an obscure poetry contest organized by ad hoc and awarded tablets to some former security personnel, as the case may be speaker– the main one in the program), obviously believers from the European diaspora and political figures. The presenter of this event was Daniel Secu, former candidate of the People’s Movement Party for the Senate of Romania in the diaspora electoral district, former consul of Romania in Uruguay and leader of the diaspora association from Spain, a politically militant association – the Federation of Associations of Romanians in Europe (FADERE).

FYI: a few days before this event, which was also attended by the Romanian Ambassador to Spain, on November 19, Secretary of State Gheorghe Carciu took part in a meeting with representatives of the Romanian Adventist community in Spain at the Romanian Adventist Church in the village of Day Seven, Calatrava Madrid, renovated with public funds from the Department of Romanian Affairs.

Under the guise of goals related to the preservation of Romanian culture and the popularization of the Romanian language through the discourse of political non-struggle, this festival (like the previous one and others like it that have been and will follow) unites, not only through symbolic presence, but also through funding , political forces representing their programs and interests. – Read the entire article and comment on Contributors.ro