Leo van Doesburg

A few weeks before yesterday's elections for the Lower House of the Dutch Parliament (officially the Second Chamber of the General Estates) it had seemed as if the race for becoming the largest party was between the rightwing liberal VVD and the left wing populist Socialist Party. In those final weeks the leader of the Labour party (PvdA) performed better than the leader of the Socialist Party in televised debates though. Thus it soon became appearant that the race would be between VVD and PvdA and the media of course focussed on this as well.  (Written by Jonathan van Tongeren: ECPYN )  

The ECPM urges Dutch Christian voters to vote tomorrow (12 September) for a Christian party in order to preserve the freedom of faith & conscience in a more and more aggressive-secular environment. Please read the statement here.    Remarkably, the party leader of one of the Christian parties, the ChristianUnion got also support of the British Prime Minister Cameron yesterday. Cameron explained: , ,My Party works hand in hand with the ChristianUnion in the European Parliament to achieve a more efficient, less interfering Europe that is committed to peace, security and trade. Arie Slob has shown a real determination to play a key part in leading the Netherlands through the current crisis. Like him, I want a strong society in which families, associations and faith-based communities can show what people can achieve when they work together to build a better country. He has a great contribution to make."    Tomorrow, 12 September, t...

On 5 April in the evening i was in a taxi driving me to my destination in Moscow. The taxi driver was a very friendly man although he could not speak English. "Ich bin ein Dumkopf" ( "I'm a fool" ) he said in broken German and that was all he could say. He pointed to beautiful churches, the river 'Moskva' and we got into Moscow. While in most parts of Europe the Spring already has begun, in Moscow the weather was still cold and snowy. From 8-10 April an important conference will take place. Recently, an initiative group was formed that would bring representatives, churches and people active in politics together to discuss how Christians could have more impact in their society, social-economy and politics. The name of the conference was: "Civic responsibility of a Christian for his Russian fatherland" and was organized in collaboration with the ECPM and the Dutch Reformed Party (SGP). I arrived safely to my destination. The next d...