In Spain there are 22,000 Catholic places of worship, the most followed religious confession in our country. You might think that the next is Islam, which has 1,500 mosques. But, in reality, the second place on the podium is occupied by Protestants, with more than 4,300 centers of worship spread throughout the Spanish territory. And rising, because in recent years the evangelical churches (of different currents, all gathered under the same umbrella) have grown in number in Spain.
On March 25, the Protestant Church came to the fore in all the media. The reason was the intervention of Yadira Maestre, a neo-Pentecostal evangelical preacher (one of the most popular Protestant currents). of the Cristo Viene de Usera Apostolic Center at a meeting of the Popular Party with the Ibero-American community of Madrid. In addition to clearly aligning himself with right-wing populism (Trump or Bolsonaro), this evangelical pastor supports retreats to ‘cure’ homosexuality and claims that he cured his mother’s cancer through the laying on of hands. The video, which began being shared by the popularended up disappearing from those accounts without leaving the slightest trace.
Is the Spanish Evangelical Church interested in being a political actor? Do you intend to create a pressure lobby? Is this a question that comes from the entire evangelical church, or only from certain cults? This medium speaks with its spokespersons to develop an X-ray of evangelical Christianity in our country; a confession on the rise, but with so many cults (Presbyterians, Methodists, Anglicans, Pentecostals…) and particularities, that it requires a detailed analysis. And with a very clear position regarding his participation in politics.
no census
How many faithful does the evangelical church have in Spain? It is unknown. There is no census of Protestants in Spain. On the other hand, there is the number of congregations (3,300) and churches, which are 4,348 throughout the Spanish territory. Of all of them, most are located in Madridwith 780 places of worship and Barcelonawith 915. They are followed by Andalusia with 678 and the Valencian Communitywhich has 459, according to data from the Observatory of Religious Pluralism.
“In the last 20 years there has been a significant growth of newly established churches, especially in the first decade of the 21st century, due to the promotion of Latin American, African and Romanian migration (to a lesser extent from China, Korea, etc.). This migratory impulse has diminished in the second decade and the same has happened with the growth of the evangelical churches that welcomed the immigrant population of evangelical faith. That growth hasn’t stopped, but it has slowed down,” They explain to this newspaper from the Federation of Evangelical Religious Entities of Spain (FEREDE) which, created in 1986, brings together the churches that adhered to the Protestant Reformation.
Although it has slowed down, the last two decades have become the golden age of Protestantism in Spain. In fact, they point out from FEREDE that “as a fact to highlight, we can point out that in 2004 there were less than 1,000 evangelical parishes registered in the Registry of Religious Entities of the Ministry of Justice. In other words, that, In about 20 years, that number has more than tripled.“. And they add that “although we do not have a census as such, we calculate 1,500,000 between faithful who regularly attend our parishes and ‘sociological Protestants’; that is, residents of northern Europe who spend more than six months in Spain”.
Not only that. From the Center for Sociological Research (CIS) they have prepared studies that conclude that, despite not having a census of faithful, “in the last twenty years, the number of Spaniards who declare themselves Protestants It has multiplied by ten and has gone from 0.2% in 1998 to 2% in 2018, according to data from the Observatory of Religious Pluralism. The disenchantment of Christians with Catholic doctrine may be one of the main factors in this conversion, added to the already mentioned boom in Latin American, African and Romanian immigration.”
win philadelphia
Another factor is, according to FEREDE, religious freedom in Spain, recovered just over 40 years ago, “which only existed during the brief intervals of the First and Second Republics, stages that coincide with the establishment and growth of churches and entities This has marked a before and after in the development and evolution of evangelical churches, their institutions and the multiplication of new churches throughout the national territory. We believe that something similar has happened in Latin Americawhen after decades of dictatorships and Catholic religious hegemony, religious freedom has been recovered”.
There are another couple of keys pointed out by this institution to explain the increase in the faithful to the Protestant confession: “Apart from these general reasons, it is worth noting two particular phenomena that have had an important impact on the visibility and growth of churches evangelicals in Spain.The first is the impact on the Spanish gypsy people from the 1960s. The Evangelical Filadelfia church, with faithful from a mainly gypsy ethnic group, is the largest in Spain with around 1000 places of worship”. Finally, they point out from FEREDE, another reason that influences is “the great social work that has been carried out among drug addicts and marginalized people since the 1980s, which has given rise to to new churches throughout the national territory and in various countries of the world”.
Founding an evangelical church also entails a series of advantages that are listed by the Federation: “The main one is that the member churches of FEREDE benefit from the Cooperation Agreements signed with the Spanish State that, among other things, recognizes the civil effects of marriages celebrated by its Ministers of Worship who, moreover, are the only ones who can carry out evangelical chaplaincy work in public establishments (Hospitals, Armed Forces, Penitentiary Centers, etc.). There are also some tax benefits for churches, such as the exemption from Real Estate Tax (IBI) for owned places of worship (exclusively dedicated to worship, excluding other properties)”.
protestant politics
However, the reason why the evangelical churches have returned to the front pages in recent days is the aforementioned rally popular last weekend in Madrid. A priori it might seem like a contradiction. And indeed it is. The Federation, given the avalanche of questions received, was forced to publish a statement in which they recalled their position regarding the participation of Ministers of Worship evangelicals at political rallies.
Despite the fact that they understand that the particular opinions of the evangelical faithful on any matter “are protected within the framework of the individual right to freedom of expression and only represent those who express them”, they did see it necessary to point out that “evangelical Christians in Spain We subscribe to the Church-State separationa democratic principle enunciated by the radical Protestant Reformation of the 16th century that we evangelicals have always defended at great risk and to the detriment of our churches, and being prey for this cause of persecution by absolutist regimes in the last five centuries”.
In this way, they try to distance themselves from any type of positioning or political use of their confession, although the evangelical seal is directly linked to politics in Latin America. “Half a century ago, the evangelical congregation represented the 3% of the Latin American population. That figure has multiplied by at least seven today, with some even more exceptional cases. In Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua the proportion is 40%. In Brazil drills 30%with the addition that some of its churches have considerable political power, as demonstrated during the era of Jair Bolsonaro and currently, before a government of the opposite sign, that of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. To win the elections, the leader of the Workers’ Party (PT) had to woo their shepherds and seek forms of forced coexistence, in addition to denying that he had intentions of burn down temples and make a pact with the devil”, illustrated Abel Gilbert in EL PERIÓDICO.
“The natural inclination of Pentecostal churches is to ally with conservative sectors. The rise of Alberto Fujimori in Peru, in the 1990s, he was silently accompanied by evangelical sectors. If at that time those endorsements were expressed with discretion, at this point the pastors no longer hide their desire to intervene in public policy nor in governments. Bolsonaro had his own ‘evangelical caucus’. The same thing happened in Guatemala with the actor and president Jimmy Morales and his successor, Alejandro Giammattei. The mayor of the city of Buenos Aires, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, fights to reach the presidency in the October elections, on behalf of the right. Facing the primaries of that space in August, he has added to his team Cynthia Hottona fierce anti-abortionist and spokesperson for recalcitrant verb pastors”, continues the piece.
charismatics
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Here in Spain, at least for now, evangelicals respect this separation of powers. But it has been one of its currents, the neo-Pentecostal (also called ‘Charismatics’, coming precisely from the Ibero-American countries) that has been placed on the starting grid of confessions that want to influence politics. They recognize in the Federation that in the evangelical confession there are different cults and that it is the neo-Pentecostal that finds itself in this position: “There are numerous Baptist churches and Brethren Assemblies. Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist… all have deep historical roots with more than 150 years of presence in Spain. We do not have data on the existence of neo-Pentecostal churches in Spain, but Spanish historical Pentecostalism stands out from that current”.
They are, therefore, the neopentecostals, coming from Latin America, the most prone to participate in political life. Spanish evangelism stands out from this trend. But the growth of this type of cult, especially on the outskirts of large Spanish cities, and its influence on the migrant population, means that their participation in politics, here in Spain, will only be a matter of time.