ISSUES OF FAITH: A taste of history and faith
Published 1:30 am Friday, May 15, 2026
IN MY COLUMN last month, I let everyone know I was going to be leaving soon for a long-delayed cruise around the Mediterranean coast of Spain.
Well, we are back, and it was a great trip. We took in Gibraltar and its monkeys, but more memorably, places like the cities of Cordoba, Grenada and Barcelona. Using the metaphor of “tapas,” the Spanish “small plate” appetizer menu, the trip allowed a taste of Spain, but I was left with the hunger to go back for a bigger meal of history and culture.
Last month, too, I commented that I was looking forward to getting more acquainted with southern Spain’s Convivencia period in history when Arabic Islam, Jewish and Christians lived in mutual respect and general harmony. This nearly 500-year period was not the Dark Ages as it was in Medieval Europe north of the Pyrenees Mountains, it was an age of intellectual enlightenment. Inter-kingdom political and economic struggles occurred, but rarely were they about fundamental religious beliefs. At least that’s what I had read and hoped I would find validated.
I did find that, by and large, this Camelot time did occur. Islam in its early days had a responsibility to protect “people of the Book,” i.e., the Bible, as all these religions traced their lineage to Abraham. Arab Islamic caliphs (supreme political and religious leaders) were in charge, but for a small tax, other religions could practice their own faiths freely.
The mosque in Cordoba still stands as a UNESCO world heritage site as an example of the incredible Arabic architecture and, to some extent, this Convivencia period. I have included here a photo to give you an idea of its uniqueness and geometric beauty.
The mosque was built in the 780s but was captured in 1236, when Christian forces pushed in from the north and pushed out Islamic and Jewish residents. The mosque was consecrated as a Catholic Cathedral and the Reconquista, the retaking of Spain by northern Catholics, continued. But most importantly, the essential architecture of the mosque was preserved. It was just too beautiful to destroy.
Sadly, this respect for architectural beauty was about the only thing remaining of the Conviv-encia. Unlike the moderate Arab Muslims of that halcyon time, the Christians gave the Muslims and Jews a one-time opportunity to convert to Christianity, leave or be killed. This began the hundreds of years of torturous Inquisitions to test whether a person was a heretic or secretly a Jew or Muslim. Most fled south across the Strait of Gibraltar.
This kind of ending of the Convivencia, a true golden age of intellectual and economic prosperity, left me saddened. I began to search for examples of brighter history.
Our last stop was Barcelona, and we had an in-depth tour that was capped with a visit to the Basilica Familia Sagrada. The enormous and breathtaking church, begun by Antoni Gaudi in 1926, is without parallel and represents to me the beauty that faith can bring to the world.
I have included a couple photos that begin to show its grandeur. Gaudi is quoted as saying that if a church can be made to be interesting on the outside, maybe people will want to come in and see the inside.
The Basilica is definitely a Roman Catholic church, but it is intentionally inclusive in its welcome. A far cry from times past.
From my experience in Spain, I learned the fragility of the jewel that was a golden age of mutual religious and intellectual respect. The Convivencia jewel was destroyed by “might makes right” hard-line religious factions, both Islamic and Christian.
But I also saw the beauty of what can come in a time when we can look beyond our differences and mutually gape at the beauty of a Cordoban mosque and the wonder of faith-made manifest in the Barcelona basilica.
The name of that basilica is Familia Sagrada, and it is Spanish/Catalan for “Holy Family” to represent Jesus, Mary and Joseph. I choose to think it also represents the entire family of God, where all are welcome.
The Familia Sagrada has been under construction for 100 years now and might be completed by 2036. That’s only 10 years from now. How wonderful it would be if the family of God could be brought back to a Convivencia time by then, too.
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Issues of Faith is a rotating column by religious leaders on the North Olympic Peninsula. Don Corson is an ordained deacon in the Lutheran Church (ELCA) and the winemaker for a local winery. He is also the minister for Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Forks. His email is ccwinemaker@gmail.com.
