European Forum: How do you measure, measure a year?
In Turku, Finland, at the end of May it was the 44th Annual Conference of the European Forum of LGBTI+ Christian Groups, and Fr Lee and I were representing One Body One Faith in the AGM. (Board member Luke had attended earlier for a flying visit.)
With a packed agenda and some charged topics, the AGM was overrunning. So the working groups — Youth, Women, Roman Catholic churches, and more — needed to give rapid-fire updates. When the speaker from the Eastern Europe and Central Asia working group mentioned KPIs, my brain whispered that it was too late in the day for KPIs and threatened to switch off. But I heard: the group was happy to report that no one that year had been exposed for being a member. Exposed to harm, threats of violence. Everyone had stayed safe.
How do you measure, measure a year?
In that moment, the context of the meeting broke in for me and I felt the relative privilege I operate with as a white CIS woman, legally married to a woman and living in London. At my own Anglican parish church, we are able to work freely on inclusion and belonging. It’s not friction-free work, but it’s in the open. If we had KPIs, they would not be about safety from violence.
But the Forum is made up of 40 member groups working across 20 or so countries — complex and far-ranging contexts, as their strategic plan for 2025 makes clear. In Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and increasingly in other parts of the world, religious institutions are aligning with nationalist and fundamentalist movements that openly oppose LGBTI+ rights. Faith is weaponised, and discrimination, exclusion, and violence painted as protection of “traditional Christian values”.
It’s not easy being queer and Christian in these times. Outgoing co-president Tarja Pyykkö reflects in the Annual Report:
As LGBTI+ Christians, we live at the beautiful, painful intersection of faith and identity. Some say we do not belong — but we know the truth: we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14). We are called. We are cherished. Our identity is not an obstacle to God’s love; it is a reflection of it.
I read that the Forum was “born out of a deep need — to create a space where LGBTI+ Christians can find support, solidarity, and a shared voice in faith communities.” And I think it is the tangible experience of a shared voice that will stay with me at the deepest level.
At the daily morning prayer there were Taizé chants. On the Saturday we attended a stunning Rainbow Communion service in Turku Cathedral, where we sang hymns, and a trio sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow at the grand piano. In fact, whenever the whole group gathered, there was singing, using an inclusive songbook created for the conference. Across all our differences, all the many languages we spoke and various Christian backgrounds, we somehow instantly became a choir.
And that made me ponder the expression “preaching to the choir”.
In Turku, we were a choir, and we had come to be preached to. To be encouraged, and galvanised and inspired. To preach — witness — to each other by telling our stories. To preach peace to our own bodies and selves by resting some and walking in the Finnish forest where the trees were still blossoming, and eating fresh food. Karaoke and that Eurovision song and dance about a sauna featured, appropriately in the land of saunas.
In her 2017 essay “Preaching to the Choir” Rebecca Solnit points out that the phrase “preaching to the choir” originally meant banging on about a point that your listeners already agree with — which is a common sin of radicals and a form of virtue signalling. But she says the warning against preaching to the choir can be applied too widely. As if we’re not doing the real work when we have a conversation with someone who shares our core beliefs. As if the work of advocacy is only about trying to convert enemies.
But, Solnit writes, “Only the most patient and skilful among us can alter the views of those who disagree profoundly. And is there no purpose in getting preached to, in gathering with your compatriots? Why else do we go to church but to sing, to pray a little, to ease our souls, to see our friends, and to hear the sermon?”
I found it beautiful that as Christians we shared in a different kind of work — liturgy, the work of the people. In fact, a lot of the conversations I had at the conference were about spiritual practices and contemplation. Partly because I kept bringing up Rhythm, but also because people have the hunger for God in common. It’s part of our core identity. Just like our capacity for holy joy, a topic that Fr Lee spoke about to the gathering with humour and grace.
I hope we all get to experience the rush of being a choir — whether instant or more permanent. And I hope our need to be preached to, and to witness to each other, is fulfilled. May we all find chosen family: those people who really get us, who put the “beloved” in beloved community and so help us keep going.
Natalie, Member
