They want the pope back to power and see the left as a great danger to Western culture. What exactly is Civitas Christiana?

Already in 2019 Civitas Christiana had the wind in the sails. Christian Right then started to mix more and more often in the public debate. Like around the Nashvillever statementin which homosexuality and trans identity are rejected and who received around 250 signatures from, among others, pastors and predecessors. Or with the great profit of forum for Democracy during the Provincial States elections of 2019. Party leader Thierry Baudet regularly flirted at the time with the religiously inspired conservatism, with statements such as « God is the right », and saw collaborations with the SGP.

After 2019, Civitas only got the wind. During the Coronapandemie, Conservative Netherlands found more and more supporters in distrust against the government and the corona measures. Dutch politics made a jerk to the right, with the most recent example the victory of the PVV in the 2023 parliamentary elections. And where in recent years more attention has been paid to themes such as gender diversity, euthanasia and abortion, the opposition became louder and louder.

For example, writer Pim Lammers was threatened with death two years ago when it became known that he would write the Children’s Book Week poem, because of a previously published story about sexual contact between a child and his football coach. Conservative organizations, influencers and Dutch celebrities accused Lammers of spreading pedosexual fantasies. Civitas Christiana started the petition ‘Do not give a stage to pedophilia writer’ and collected six thousand signatures in a short time.

Black book spring jitters

This year, the Foundation opened the attack on the Week of the spring jitters. On the cover of the 75 pages Black book spring jitters -that can be ordered free of charge as an e-book via the Civitas website-is a little girl who looks in the camera with open eyes and is grabbed by two large men’s hands from behind her shoulders. In the book, Civitas Christiana extensively continues the teaching materials of Rutgers and information books of others. The writers then connect conclusions, as Rutgers would encourage children to self-satisfaction and ‘LGBT indoctrination’.

Good information means that young people become sexually active in terms of people, because they can indicate their own limits

According to Luc Lauwers, deputy director of Rutgers, loose sentences are written down in a different context. As an example, he mentions a lesson that is about indicating boundaries and recognizing for yourself when something is or is not a good feeling. By removing it from the context, it seems as if children are being encouraged to be sexual behavior, says Lauwers. Rutgers has now consciously put a number of demolesses online that in the Blackbook are cited so that people can see for themselves what the teaching material consists of.

« It ranges from pedophilia to the supposedly sexualization of children. Nothing is right, » said Lauwers. « We assume a scientific basis. Good information means that young people later become sexually active because they can set their own limits. »

Catholic Church

The foundation has it Blackbook Also spread in physical form. Pastor Jan-Jaap van Peperstraten of the diocese of Haarlem-Amsterdam got it on the doormat, but thrown it away. « That is a standard tactic of traditionalists, they bomb you with prose. I am quite immune for that. »

He looks at Civitas Christiana with « the necessary skepticism ». He believes that the « confrontational way of communicating » makes a dialogue about « sensitive and intimate topics » very difficult. « And what I object to a lot is their recurring suggestion that they are a recognized Catholic organization in a certain way. While they are not. » Van Peperstraten is sometimes approached at views of the foundation. « Then I am asked if that is the position of the Catholic Church and I think: Hey, no! »

The influence of Civitas and similar clubs is well noticeable in the church of the Netherlands, says Gert-Jan van Leeuwen. He is chairman of Christenqueer, an organization for Christian LGBTI people, but emphasizes that he is talking about this subject in a personal title. « We are happy to have a conversation with churches on this subject, but we notice that we have recently come to some more difficult. There we are less easily asked to give a lecture or to give a program. That is why we are now doing more digitally. » Van Leeuwen notes that receding movement mainly in the Orthodox Protestant and the Orthodox Gospelic Churches.

That is a development of the last few years, Van Leeuwen sees. « It is a movement that gets more and more the upper hand. You notice in conversations that the narrative of Civitas provides skepticism. In the past there was also that counterpower, but then you could still talk well together. Now that the lobby is becoming more stupid, we notice that conversations harden faster. »

To share

Mail the editors