Multi-religiosity in the Canary Islands: Analysing processes of religious change between continents

Abstract

This article is made possible by the research program of the group RELICAN (Religions in the Canaries), which is devoted to the study of multi-religiosity in the Canary Islands. The aim of the group is to analyse the different religious components implied in the configuration of the present diversity of the Canarian religious field. In this exposition, the tri-continental geo-strategic position of the Canary Islands is understood to be of critical importance as the islands form an archipelago located near the coast of Africa, but they are closer to Europe from a cultural and political point of view, and they are also closely linked to Ibero-America (and to the whole American continent) in many respects. Christianity is the primary European religious tradition in the Canaries, and it has many faces: Catholicism maintains an undeniably powerful influence but the presence of Protestant churches continues to increase both for foreigners and tourists (mainly from European countries) and also for Spaniards who convert to non-Catholic Christian churches. African religious perspectives have been reinforced as a result of immigration: Islam is the second most prominent religion in the Canaries due to the importance of Moroccan immigration, but also due to the increasing presence of Senegalese, Mauritanian and other Muslim immigrants. The impact of American religious traditions is increasing not only due to immigration from Ibero- America but also because of the influence of Pentecostals, Baptists, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and other American (i.e. U.S.) models of being Christian. The problems and challenges that are particular to this field of research are examined and revised in the last part of the article from an analytical perspective that has as its focus the local‐global implications of the religious changes taking place in the Canaries.

Notes

English text revised by Catherine Humes

The present article is a product of the Research Project ‘‘La multirreligiosidad en Canarias: ana lisis de las comunidades y grupos religiosos minoritarios’’ (Fundacion Pluralismo y Convivencia, Madrid-Universidad de La Laguna) and reflects the research of the group RELICAN (Dyez de Velasco, 2008d, including more bibliographical references). I wish to acknowledge that I was granted the permission to use the results of this research in this paper