Thousands sign in defense of the Madrid pastor accused of performing conversion therapy

Miguel Ángel Martín is the pastor of the Sedientos de Jesucristo (Thirsty for Jesus Christ) Christian Church in Madrid (Spain), a small evangelical church with the usual activities: services, preaching, community activities, prayer and spiritual guidance for all those who come looking for help.

This openness in evangelical churches has been taken advantage of by Spanish national private television Telecinco's “Viva la Vida” program to create a trap, using a hidden camera.

Two reporters pretended to be interested in the church for several days. They attended several services, and even made a profession of faith. Later, they used some of the hidden camera material from a private pastoral meeting for the program.

These reporters also had contact during the month of February with other evangelicals, such as Federico Valencic, another evangelical Christian who has no relationship with the aforementioned church, as Valencic himself and also pastor Miguel Ángel confirmed to Spanish news website Protestante Digital.

The matter, however, did not stay in the news alone, since the LGBTQ association Arcópoli filed a complaint with the Regional government of the Community of Madrid.

The complaint alleges that the church carried out conversion therapy to cure homosexuality in their church building, something that the pastor strongly denounces.

REGIONAL GOVERNMENT OF MADRID THREATENS A SERIOUS SANCTION

Although Pastor Miguel Ángel doesn’t yet know if the complaint has been registered and processed by the Community of Madrid, the Social Policy Counselor of the regional government, Alberto Reyero, announced in early March that they would study imposing an “significant sanction”, more than 20,000 euros, applying the sanctioning regulations of Madrid’s LGBTQ law.

The pastor, originally from Madrid, had been in Peru for several years and returned to the city three years ago to serve as a pastor. He described the damage that this situation has caused. “What matters least to us is the fine, we are more concerned with the very serious damage that is being done against the church”, Miguel Ángel Martín told Protestante Digital. 

THREE MINUTES AFTER TWO HOURS OF TALK

“These journalists were coming regularly to our services. One posed as a brother in Christ who lived in Valencia (a city in the Eastern coast of Spain) and was a member of a church there. He said he wanted to bring his friend to meet us and for him to be saved. The first meeting was a mid-week Bible study on Thursday, February 20th. It lasted more than 2 hours and afterwards he prayed and asked to be saved in front of everyone. We were all very happy that a person was saved”, the pastor shared.

“The next morning, the one who said he was from Valencia asked for a second meeting with the pastor. He said that it was personal, and that he wanted to talk privately about his problems with his friend. He was very insistent because he said he had to return to Valencia (this was on Friday the 21st). At the meeting the pastor explained that, as in a Catholic church, in Protestant churches confessions are kept confidential and what they said would remain private. Moved by their pain, the pastor listened to them for almost 2 hours, spoke to them, taught them various passages in the Bible, and they prayed together”, said Miguel Ángel.

“What I did not imagine was that they were carrying an illegally hidden recording device, and would publish part of the prayer, breaking the confidentiality of confession and constitutional rights on religious freedom”, the pastor said.

Just two days later, on Sunday, February 23rd, an edited version showing just three minutes of the meeting were published on Telecinco’s program. In it, spirits of sin are prayed against and rebuked, a practice carried out in some evangelical churches.

Adolfo Arias, the journalist who made the video, later continued to discuss this topic on his Twitter feed. In one of his tweets, he mocked a message he received on WhatsApp from one of the women in the church, whom he disparagingly called “the Aramaic speaker”.

According to Pastor Miguel Ángel, the journalist wanted to report them to Community of Madrid, manipulating his words, for having carried out an alleged therapy to cure homosexuality, “something that was never done because in the Sedientos Church we do not have any such program. We have no conversion therapy program, nor do we have any intention of starting one”, he clarified. 

MORE THAN 23.000 SIGNATURES OF SUPPORT

Miguel Ángel Martín also regrets that these journalists toyed with the religious beliefs of so many people and that they even came to pressure him a few days later looking for more images in front of the church, in an attempt to keep the story alive.

The position of Miguel Ángel, throughout this process, has been one of powerlessness, knowing that he is the victim of a report that seeks to incriminate him. He says that the Federation of Evangelical Religious Entities in Spain (FEREDE as it’s known in Spanish), released a statement about it, but hasn’t gotten very involved in the case (his church does not belong to the Federation).

The pastor was thankful for the support he has received from entities such as Hazte Oír, which has started a collection of signatures to defend the right to religious freedom. The petition already has the support of more than 23,000 signatories. “Sign this petition directed at President of the Community of Madrid Isabel Díaz Ayuso (copied to the Social Policies advisor), asking her to dismiss the accusation that the LGBTQ lobby has launched against him”, they state in the petition.

TELECINCO'S ATTACKS AGAINST EVANGELICALS

This is not the first time Telecinco attacks an evangelical church. In June 2018, the broadcaster falsely accused the pastor of a church in the city of Benidorm of pederasty, and later was forced to apologise as they admitted they had misunderstood a police report.