Evangelicalism grows in Catalonia
Luke Randall
The number of evangelical worship places in Catalonia has increased by 100 in four years, making it the religious tradition which has experienced the “most significant growth” during the last 20 years.
There were 889 evangelical worship places as of 2024, 100 more than in 2020, which continues a steady pattern of growth which began in the late 19th century, mostly due to Pentecostal churches, according to the Religious Map of Catalonia.
Spain: Therapy ban ‘totalitarian’
Luke Randall
The Spanish Evangelical Alliance (AEE) has claimed that new proposals to punish conversion therapy practices with stricter sanctions, including jail terms, are akin to the “anti-conversion laws of totalitarian regimes”.
Spain’s Social Democratic Party have proposed that conversion therapy practices should be included within the Spanish Penal Code. This would see anyone who engages in any form of coercive procedure to “modify, repress, eliminate or deny” someone’s sexual orientation, identity or expression face the possibility of jail terms of six months to two years, according to Evangelical Focus.
letter from Spain
Fiestas and faith: a clash of cultures
Trevor Ramsey
In the middle of November each year, the streets of Benidorm on Spain’s Costa Blanca are transformed by two very different fiestas. Benidorm loves a good fiesta.
Firstly, the Spanish enjoy a five day fiesta which is a strange mixture of the weird, wacky and wonderful. Each morning at 8am fireworks are set off in order ‘to awaken the sleeping spirits’. There are various cultural events but also rather sombre parades of statues of the Virgin Mary, accompanied by throngs of elegantly dressed young people and myriads of flowers. It is hard not to be moved by the solemnity of it all yet to feel, as Paul did in Athens, that this is nothing short of religious ignorance – certainly far removed from the liberating gospel of Christ.
