promise his faction would launch a European campaign to make its pro-life and Christian beliefs more attractive to people across Europe.
The Party official, Gerard Geijtenbeek, told BosNewsLife the Christian Union would launch a Passion for Life campaign aimed at fighting an old opinion that "Christians can’t do anything at [sic] Sunday, and are reading the Bible with the lights off all day."
In The Netherlands the Christian Union has been associated to some conservative reformed Christians, who have been dubbed the "Black Stockings Church", by critics, for their refusal to watch television or work on Sunday.
It has also been used by critics to attack pro-life groups who have often links to Christian organizations and the Christian Union party, Geijtenbeek suggested. "People often know what we oppose, but they don’t know for what we stand," he said.
"PASSION FOR JESUS"
The ChristianUnion has "a passion for Jesus", as well as a passion for Eternal Life, for the life of the elderly and the weak, Geijtenbeek added. In recent days Geijtenbeek spoke with Christian politicians to investigate the basis for "a kind of passion for life" fraction in the European Parliament (EP) that would rival the European Peoples Party, the largest fraction.
Supporters of his plan would also battle extreme nationalism that has overshadowed the collapse of Communism in several future European Union member states, including Hungary and Romania, Geijtenbeek said.
As an example he said that Bishop Laszlo Tokes of the Hungarian Reformed Church in Romania is carrying out "a dangerous policy" by leading a party that promotes independence of Transylvania, which was part of Hungary till the end of World War I.
"HISTORIC INJUSTICE"
Up to two million ethnic Hungarians live in the Romanian region, and Tokes has made clear he wants to revise, what he calls, this "historic injustice." Geijtenbeek hopes that Tokes, who played a key role in the Romanian revolution against dictator Nicolae Ceausescu will focus more on his church work and less on politics.
"He certainly deserves our prayers," he said. At a four-day meeting of Christians in Hungary, the vice president of the EP, Ingo Friedrich, said he hoped Transylvania could get the same semi-autonomous status as South-Tyrol, recalled Geijtenbeek.
He said however that the proposal was not realistic as Transylvania is very diverse. The Christian Union is involved in educating a new generation of Eastern European politicians, who it hopes will not carry the burden of the troubles of the past into politics.
