Report Roman correspondence
Protestants divided in Spain over LGBT ideology: on the one hand the supporters of the line «inclusive», on the other those of the line «biblical».
Among the first are the evangelicals, who are somewhat of the "deans" of Iberian Protestantism, having been founded in the second half of the 19th century, and which represent the union of historical groups such as those of Presbyterians, Methodist, Lutherans and Congregationalists. They welcomed gender ideology and other key principles of extreme modernism with great enthusiasm.
Baptists oppose this position, Pentecostals, charismatics and Adventists, which together represent the largest context, in close ties with the United States and Latin America: they are decidedly against gender ideology in the name of biblical doctrine, which very clearly condemns homosexual acts in both the Old and New Testaments. For this reason they are branded as «fundamentalism“e di”retrograde conservatism» by evangelicals.
The clash became evident in 2014, when the Evangelical Council of Madrid began procedures to expel those who were pro-LGBT, like evangelicals, even though they were among the founders of this body. In an interview given to the blog homoprotestant (a name that says it all, it's worth saying), the “pastor” Esther Ruiz accused the Evangelical Council of «inquisition» and discrimination against a «plural church», such as the one they promoted with the support of the Spanish Anglicans, who opposed the expulsion of the evangelicals, act that, according to them, would have forgotten the «pluralism typical of Protestantism and the churches of the Reformation».
The issue was only concluded last year with a compromise solution: evangelicals remained on the Council, but by virtue of belonging «not active», therefore without the right to speak, voting and participation in the general meeting. The controversy, however, continued and moved to the Ferede headquarters, the Federation of evangelical religious realities of Spain, institution of fundamental importance for everything concerning the Cooperation Agreements, signed in 1992 with the State. Even here in March, however, the issues should come to a head among the benches of the 61st general assembly, where new things emerge, heated disputes.