Gayle and I have been on the road for 2 weeks and in the next few posts I will try to pick up on the broad headlines of where we have been and what we have done. Some 2.5k kms (1.5k miles) later across the south of Spain and into the mountainous area just below the Sierra Nevadas called the Alpujarras (we were up as high as 4000ft / 1200mtrs). Mosquito bites, one night no where to park up other than a car park, a birthday while on the road (I have had a few before), but above all amazing to connect with history.
Our journey took us to Cartagena, through the mountainous area of Las Alpujarras (and windy roads), Granada, Las Navas de Tolosa, Cordoba and down to Tarifa and finally on to the amazing town of Frigiliana (nr. Malaga). Frigiliana has been voted Spain’s most beautiful village and it would be hard to argue with that. We have been motivated for this, and the previous trips this year, by the expulsion of the Muslims from Spain. Toward the end of last year the Lord put this on our hearts, not knowing too much about it, but are more convinced now than then that this has to be done.
Over the next few days I will try and blog about some of the key parts of these past two weeks and will put a few reflections in this post to set the scene. Over many years I have found that in prayer the bigger changes take place internally. It is probably impossible to get involved in repentant prayer for history without being changed oneself. In a recent trip a good Spanish person expressed that only in prayer had she realised that there was hatred in her ‘blood’ toward Muslims. We have no criticism of that. We all think we are OK until we confront the kenotic love of God who gives his life not for his friends but for his enemies.
Here are a few ways in which we are being deeply impacted:
- It does matter whether one is a Christian, a Muslim or a Jew (the three religions that have impacted Spain, and I use the terms to apply whether the person is nominal or a ‘believer’) and the outworking is one of oppression over the other – they are all in opposition, to one level or another, to Jesus.
- Our spiritual ancestors are those of the Jewish faith who were called to be priests for the nations. Like them we have failed, wanting to be as the others, determining who is in and who is out, rather than seeking to be servants for all.
- Those called in that way when become guilty of oppressing others are extremely guilty because of using the name of Jesus, and they sow what is reaped elsewhere. Sharia law… seed is in the ‘Christian’ nation; Dayesh / Al Qaeda… look to the crusades, expulsions in Spain, Sykes-Picot agreement (French / British)… and ultimately to Christendom / Constantinianism. Sadly those elements are not part of history past but are often being beefed up among many charismatic movements today.
- Those evicted were of the land. They were either converts who had been in the land for (all-but) forever, or were descendants of those who came some 700 years prior. The persecutions and war was civil war. Many were genuinely, as they understood it in their era, converts to Christianity, and as a result were kicked out only to be rejected and often killed when sent back to where their ancestors came from. (Imagine an immigration policy that evicted all those who had been in a land less than 700 years!!)
- Never perfect, but there was a general ‘convivencia’ (living together) in the land for Jews, Christians and Muslims under Muslim rule. Part of Paul’s apostolic Gospel would be to restore that… without ever losing sight of the uniqueness of Jesus. Paul was clear on both. ‘We are all his offspring’. And he himself as a pious Jew needed Jesus otherwise he would remain as the ‘chief of sinners’. It seems we have strayed so far from the Pauline Gospel, so that election for Jews means there are two ways for justification, and we have the right to demonise all Muslims.
This journey is changing us. We sow our prayers for a change in the nation, Europe, and for a restoration of the Pauline gospel.