{"id":21212,"date":"2026-05-11T11:33:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T11:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/21212\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T11:33:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T11:33:09","slug":"i-am-a-christian-not-an-infiltrator-evangelical-focus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/21212\/","title":{"rendered":"I am a Christian, not an infiltrator, Evangelical Focus"},"content":{"rendered":"

My hallmark is Jesus.\u00a0I am Spanish, Catalan and Turkish by adoption; I have lived in that country for 37 years. But above all, I am a follower of Jesus. <\/p>\n

If you wish to pin a label on me and place me within a branch of Christianity, I am Protestant, evangelical or simply Christian. I do not belong to a sect, but I can concede that, due to historical developments, I belong to a movement known as the Reformation.<\/p>\n

All Evangelical Focus news and opinion,\u00a0on your WhatsApp<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But my hallmark is Jesus and the Gospel. It is not Martin Luther, nor is it the Catholic-Protestant conflict, much less evangelicalism, nor any political collusion of faith with any regime or ideology.<\/p>\n

In Turkey, they branded me \u2013 and Turkish Protestants in general \u2013 as a political infiltrator<\/a>. And in Spain, they brand me \u2013 and evangelical Christians in general \u2013 as ideological infiltrators serving certain geopolitical agendas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"I<\/p>\n

\u00a0A column by opinion leader Neus Tom\u00e1s on ElDiario newspaper in Spain links evangelicals to Latin America and the US and says they are a ‘very attractive movement for the right and far-right’.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

Before those \u2018agendas\u2019 even existed, we were already in Spain; we were second-class Spaniards<\/a> in the eyes of \u2018you know which\u2019 regime<\/a>\u2026 At times we were \u2018Freemasons\u2019 or \u2018left-wing communists\u2019, for having once celebrated the Republic and the freedoms of worship it brought.<\/p>\n

My great-uncle was a schoolteacher who was executed by the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War. He was not a spy, nor are the thousands of evangelicals who today make up 3% of the Spanish population<\/p>\n

But today, in the opinion of some \u2013 or perhaps they want to make us so \u2013 we are \u201cZionists\u201d or \u201cTrumpists\u201d<\/a>, because they lump us all together in the same bogeyman\u2019s sack, in their minds, or simply because some still believe that Spain belongs only to them, or they like to label others with whatever arouses their greatest antipathy, or perhaps they are afraid of what they defend, whether in whispers or loud and clear: pluralism.<\/p>\n

In Turkey they threw Molotov cocktails at us (at the churches); here they throw incendiary cocktails of misinformed pundits at us<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is not my case. I am not an infiltrator. And as far as I know, neither were my grandparents nor my great-great-grandparents. My great-uncle was a schoolteacher executed by the Nationalist side during the Spanish Civil War. The same cannot be said of the thousands and thousands of people who, if we must label them, are known as Evangelicals and who, together with me and my close circle, make up 3% of this country\u2019s population.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s see if we can get this straight. I, and anyone else can criticise the scandals of the Catholic order of the Legionaries of Christ, which the media have splashed all over the place, whilst at the same time acknowledging all the good work done by other sectors of Catholicism.<\/p>\n

Likewise, I can criticise\u2014and I do\u2014any excess or misstep by anyone labelled an \u201cevangelical\u201d, whilst at the same time celebrating the thousands upon thousands who love Jesus and reflect that love in their daily lives, as Paul says, in fragile earthen vessels.<\/p>\n

\u00a0We may do it better or worse, but nothing else drives us. We understand that Jesus is the Saviour of our lives on every level: present, future and cosmic<\/p>\n

Because what drives us is not to champion a particular branch of Christianity, nor a political choice, nor a worldview of potential imperialist blocs, nor even cultural ones (though we are obviously sons and daughters of our culture). Rather, what drives us is to follow Jesus and his teachings.<\/p>\n

We may do it better or worse, but nothing else drives us. Because we understand that He is the Saviour of our lives on every level: present, future and cosmic. And not only that. The impact of His life, teaching, death and resurrection remains an open invitation to every human being to find their true humanity, in the words of the Apostle Paul (Eph 4:13, NIV).<\/p>\n

Allow us to continue following Jesus. Or join us in this following, and it won\u2019t be long before they pin some label on you, some \u2018INRI\u2019. But you will also hear from His lips, if I may adapt the words: \u201cTruly, truly I tell you, from today you are with me in paradise. For I am paradise, here, now and forever\u201d.<\/p>\n

Carlos Madrigal, missiologist in Barcelona (Spain), former Protestant pastor in Turkey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"My hallmark is Jesus.\u00a0I am Spanish, Catalan and Turkish by adoption; I have lived in that country for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2705,2703,2704,2700,10335,2706,11315,3217,17,2702,11316,2251],"class_list":{"0":"post-21212","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-church-news","9":"tag-digital-evangelical-news","10":"tag-evangelical-news","11":"tag-evangelicals","12":"tag-media","13":"tag-religion-news","14":"tag-religious-freedom","15":"tag-southern-europe","16":"tag-spain","17":"tag-spainchristian-news","18":"tag-stereotypes","19":"tag-turkey"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}