ECM International

Spiritual Climate

In the history of Catholic Spain from the Reformation to the present day, there have been only two brief periods of relative liberty for Evangelicals. It was not until 1977 that a good measure of religious liberty was granted. Today Spain has freedom of expression, politics and religion unparalleled by any other period in its own history. Spain is wide open to the "bad" as well as to the "good" which freedom can bring and she never needed missionaries more than she does today to preach the Good News. If spaniards are not reached for Christ now they will be by the muslims or by the eastern religions or simply they will be part of the world that believes in consumerism. Now is the time to preach Christ because if we wait it will be too late.

Most people are still nominally Roman Catholic, but for the majority, this is as far as it goes. The Catholic Church has lost a lot of its influence since it is tainted in people’s minds by its association with the Franco regime and the tyranny of the Inquisition in the 16^th century.  Over 30% of the population, although baptized, no longer claim any link with Catholicism,  and a further 40-50% are inactive. Although 79% profess to be Roman Catholic, 50% do not go to mass, 17% go only a few times a year and only 18% go every day.

During this time, evangelicals have grown in number from about 20,000 in 1970 to about 400.000 at present, a figure which does not include the Roma (Gypsy) churches which number about 80,000. This latter group has grown rapidly among its people and is now the largest evangelical body in the country, but is culturally isolated.  

With the influx of new ideas, atheism and materialism, family influence is lessening, moral standards are falling, interest in the occult and drugs are being extended even to the smaller towns.  This is the challenge that lies before us: the needs remain enormous. Twenty eight of Spain’s 52 provinces have fewer than 1,000 evangelical believers, and there are still more then 7.500 towns with populations over 5,000 that have no evangelical witness.