June (Web-only) 2005

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At the beginning of this month, former Pentecostal pastor, TV producer, and Danish politician Tove Videbaek assumed her role as the European Evangelical Alliance's representative to the European Union in Brussels. Her daunting task is making sure that Europe's evangelicals are heard by E.U.'s governing bodies and that the implications of EU's decisions register with the evangelicals. She spoke about her new job by e-mail with Christianity Today associate editor Agnieszka Tennant.

Christians in the United States regretted the omission of Europe's Christian roots in the draft of the E.U. constitution. What do you think about it? What consequences is it likely to have for Europe's future generations?

I, too, regretted the omission of God and Christian values in the EU treaty. In my job at the Danish parliament I really struggled and discussed this in the chamber. I struggled to make our foreign minister take a neutral stand and refrain from voting against countries like Poland and Spain, who wanted these words in the treaty. But I did not succeed in this. Denmark voted against the mentions of God and Christianity.

But now France and Holland have said no to the treaty, and at the time being no one knows what is going to become of the treaty. Maybe we won't even have a treaty several months from now.

What prepared you for your job at the E.U.?

My parents only went to church at Christmas. But when I was 5 years old, I got very ill, and my parents asked some active Christians they knew to pray for me. I recovered, and they started going to church regularly. I started going to Sunday school in a Pentecostal church in my hometown. There I was inspired by a visiting American pastor—the former superintendent of Assemblies of God in ...