Posted on 01/09/2022 5:34:22 PM PST by marshmallow
SALAMANCA, Spain (AP) — When Kent Albright, a Baptist pastor from the United States, arrived as a missionary to Spain in 1996, he was unprepared for the insults and threats, or the fines from the police for handing out Protestant leaflets on the streets of Salamanca.
“Social animosity was big — they had never seen a Protestant in their life,” said Albright, recalling one woman who whispered, “Be thankful we don’t throw stones at you.”
He couldn’t have imagined that 25 years later, he would be pastoring an evangelical congregation of 120 and count about two dozen other thriving Protestant churches in the northwestern city. And there’s a distinctive feature to the worshippers: Most of them are not Spanish-born — they’re immigrants from Latin America, including about 80% of Albright’s congregation.
The numbers reflect huge surges in Spain’s migrant population and evangelical population in recent decades, producing profound changes in how faith is practiced in a country long dominated by the Catholic church.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Awesome! The Christian church is growing exponentially in South America, Central America,, China, and Africa. Obviously growth has slowed in US and Canada. We will be the mission field.
Spain has been a Christian country for almost 2000 years. Why don’t you try evangelizing the nominally-Protestant functionally atheist citizens of the Netherlands or the Scandinavian countries?
Everyone should be evangelized, including countries with a Catholic history.
Countries aren’t Christian. Only humans can be Christian.
And this, “ Regular Mass attendance is rather low: The same study reported that among those who do identify as believers, 59.3% almost never attend Mass or services other than at weddings, funerals and the like.”
Likely few believers who are saved, and of course God wants them to be saved.
So good news!
There are now huge numbers of Pentacostals in Latin America. It presumably appeals to native Americans.
My grandfather liked a book “The Bible in Spain” by someone who was selling Bibles in Spanish in Spain retail and wholesale in the 1830s for the English Bible Society. At that time there were no non-Catholic churches in Spain, and the author was briefly imprisoned. The author tells various stories about the people he met and so on. Some of the stories are about Gypsies and secret Jews who were presumably more friendly to a Protestant.
The author was probably more accepted being Anglican and the first Protestant churches in Spain were Anglican / Episcopal. There were traditional main line reformed churches before Baptist etc.
Glory to God, not King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Otherwise, Religious practice declines in Spain Only 2 in 10 Spaniards are practicing Catholics, according to official statistics. Half of young people identify as either Atheists, Agnostics or indifferent.
Why are your comrades evangelizing conservative Bible Christians? For the same reason we evangelizing conservative Catholics. Lost souls need true Scriptural conversion. And see my post above. You think even non-practicing (Spain's majority) Catholics are saved? You think they would be better off being atheists and agnostics?
As i pointed out, certain RCs think there is nothing hypocritical about evangelizing us and yet call a country in which only about 20% are practicing Catholics "Christian" and can get indignant about souls therein worshiping God in a evangelical church rather than submitting to their self-proclaimed one true church.
It is sadly often much about the virtual worship of Mother Church as a spiritual security blanket, never having had true regenerating conversion. Been there, past tense. Thanks be to God.
I hear, Iran too. You are right. I met Koreans in California. They were missionaries to America.
Europe is post-christian, and that includes the traditionally catholic countries. Europe is a mission field.
Catholic or evangelical or what-have-you, its a mission field.
What’sa matter?
Losing some of your Catholic turf?
The WHOLE earth is!!
Let’s hope the Gospel spreads in all of these countries of Europe.
Of course you're right. People are accustomed to thinking of "mission fields" as referring to the third world, and they are accustomed to thinking of western nations as "the christian west". The west, though, including the predominantly catholic countries, was only ever partially christianized, and they are losing what they once had.
The US itself is a wide open mission field.
Bless them! They are needed.
They are not there to “evangelize” Spain. They are immigrants who took their beliefs with them and are finding places to worship.
ROFL.
Just as in the US, the Church squandered its opportunities in much of the world.
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