Sacred song, spirituality and social justice

This article explores the relationship between music, particularly sacred singing, spirituality and social justice, by means of investigating, through a combination of scholarship, case studies and first-hand experience, how music and singing are able to encourage community cohesion, promote human dignity, and be an embodied form of spirituality; how music and song can challenge societal assumptions and norms, as well as confront injustice and inhumanity; and also how music and song can express the pain of human suffering and political oppression and challenge them, focusing on the particular example of the singing revolution in the Baltic states and the work of Arvo Pärt.