|
News, June 2011News from the ChurchesDiffering responses to new euthanasia law. Excitement as the Gospel encounters the 'Indignants' in Madrid's Puerta del Sol square. Bookshop at Madrid book fair. New web services flourishing. Evangelical responses to the new bill on the end of life are varying. The socialist government's final piece of social legislation has met with condemnation from the Evangelical Alliance, which the Evangelical Federation (FEREDE) looks more kindly on it. As the government agonises through the end of a legislature with no hope of re-election, it is hopeful to put this final nail in the coffin of divinely inspired laws on the sanctity of life. Over the past 8 years laws have reduced marriage to a 3 month prolongable contract, abortion free on demand up to 14 weeks into a pregnancy and now it hopes to move towards the legalisation of euthanasia. The FEREDE has come out in favour of a law which does not appear to promote active euthanasia and regulates a bit better the complicated business of switching off machines which might otherwise prolong life unnaturally. The Alliance is harder on the law, which appears to do away with the lex artis, a remnant of the hypocratic oath which aimed at ensuring the doctors always ensure the best for the patient. When the 'Indignants' occupied Madrid's central Puerta del Sol square, the daily open air team of Kilómetre Cero faced an unruly crowd. Usually filled with shoppers, immigrants, pensioners and older unemployed folk, tourists and pickpockets, all going about their business, the crowd of young people with a mega-chip on their shoulder found it hard to share the space they had recently occupied with the square's regular users. So when the KM0 team turned up one evening they were attacked by people waving banners demanding things such as 'Freedom of expression', but not allowing that freedom to others. However, Jacob Bock, leader of KM0, reports that the following day the Lord turned things around, with an immigrant who couldn't wait for the appeal to get saved! For the 39th time, the Calatrava Evangelical bookshop in Madrid had a stand in the Madrid book fair at the beginning of June. Virtually since the 1967 law of religious tolerance (still under the Franco dictatorship), this bookshop has been a point of witness and contact for the people of Madrid interested in obtaining a Bible or other evangelical literature. Most evangelical institutions, such as schools, hospitals and bookshops, were closed during the Civil War (1936-9) and not allowed to reopen. The Calatrava bookshop was one of the exceptions. During the 1960s, they were encouraged by the young George Verwer (founder of Operation Mobilisation), who also opened a bookshop for a time in Madrid. Last year queen Sofia visited the Calatrava book stand. On 14th June leading daily El País published an article about the growing conversion rate of former muslims: you can read it here. Now on or coming soon!The English language service of Protestante Digital has been closed during the relaunch of this news service of the Spanish Evangelical Alliance in Spanish. PD's director has assured us that a completely new service will be launched in June to replace the one which we knew until January. The Catalan language service will take a bit longer, possibly being relaunched after the summer. The government is to include the recognition of certain protestant academic (theological) titles in a new adaptation of its way of relating to the evangelical community. A number of seminaries have been campaigning for this for years. Also a number of pastors, who were not permitted to contribute to the Social Security under Franco (and later) are now finally to get a pension. In addition, evangelicals will be granted the right to request 0.7% of their tax bill to be granted to the Federation of Evangelical Churches (FEREDE) in future years (hopefully as from the 2012 tax year), as has for many years been the right of Catholics. Finally, the status of church buildings will be defined. Over the past few years many buildings have been closed by municipal authorities, often on spurious grounds. Mi Esperanza (My Hope), a TV campaign, will take place at Christmas 2011. It was launched in mid-November 2010. The campaign aims to unite the best of mass and personal evangelism, by training church members to invite neighbours, family and other contacts to their home to watch the 30 minute TV show together. They will then give a 3 minute testimony and invite people to turn to Christ. In this simple way, local churches can take advantage of a nationwide broadcast on a main stream channel to reach out at a time of year when people are most open to the gospel. This outreach is being supported by most of the largest denominations and many local churches, as well as backed with a major contribution from the Billy Graham Association. See the Spanish website! Recent news and eventsThe government is working on a web site which will help local authorities decide what is the right way to proceed when churches open centres of worship. It will use the name www.observatorioreligioso.es, which was due to go on line until 15th June. (No evidence as of 16th.) Another web we have recently come upon, thanks to email contact, is Prayer Sharers, set up by English speaking residents in Andalusia. It brings a weekly prayer update, among other items of interest. Earlier news in bullets:
For earlier news from the churches, click here! Finally, more news from the churches is (usually) always available at the Protestante Digital site.As of 1st February, the transformation of the PD web means there has been some interruption to the service. You can also listen to some reports and comment. |