In August 2012 the European Forum offers a summer school "Creating Safe Space. Theology, Homosexuality and Human Rights". The training course builds upon the "Safe Space Project" and addresses activists from Eastern Europe who work in the field of religion, human rights and lgbt issues. The European Forum cooperates closely with MCC, the Eastern European Forum and the local group Queer Credo from Kiev.

Summer School 2012 in Kiev
Creating Safe Spaces

A Taining Project on Theology, Homosexuality and Human Rights

Everybody needs safe spaces in life.
In order to live, love and believe.

Creating Safe Spaces 2012

Some years ago, the European Forum started the “Safe Space” training project. The project was started because we experienced that LGBT often were deprived of such safe spaces in society and in churches. In many countries religion is being used to stop LGBT people from having basic human rights and safe spaces. Sometimes religion is also being used to defend – or even cause – violence against LGBT people. We see the need for human rights workers to be able to challenge the arguments of religious leaders and politicians who use – or misuse – religiously based arguments to fight against general human rights for LGBT people, such as:

• the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion
• the right to freedom of speech
• the right to freedom from violence
• the right to assemble (for instance in Gay Pride parades and other human rights demonstrations)
• the right to non-discrimination
• the right to found a family

Within Churches, many people also use religiously based arguments to exclude lesbians and gays from the church, to prevent them from being ministers or work in the church and from having their marriages or partnerships blessed in the church. We see the need to complement human rights knowledge with knowledge about how to read and interpret the Bible. Many conservative religious leaders and politicians do not listen to human rights-language. Their arguments need to be met with religiously based counter argumentation.

The Summer School 2012 in Kiev

In August 2012, European Forum will arrange a Summer School in Kiev, Ukraine. The Summer School targets activists who are, or can be expected to become leading figures in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Christian movement in Eastern Europe (especially the countries of the former Soviet-Union) and to LGBT human rights activists of this region.

It follows the principle of „train the trainers“. Participants apply with a letter of motivation and are chosen on the criterion of their leadership capacities. Among the participants a balance according to gender, countries and Christian denominations of the region is foreseen.
The Summer School will be held with 16 participants and 5 trainers.

Aims of the Summer School

One of the aims of the summer school is to strengthen the identity of lesbians and gays and to exercise theological debates in role plays, biblical studies and communication trainings. It is the goal to show strategies and methods of how people can discuss about these controversial topics with respect and appreciation in a theological and ecclesiastical surrounding. The patterns and mechanisms of religiously based hate speeches and hate crimes are being analyzed and discussed. In contrast, a biblically and contextually based theology of diversity is developed.

A Training Project on Theology, Homosexuality and Human Rights
The Safe Space project is a training course focusing on subjects like:

• Homosexuality and faith; texts and contexts, different ways to read the Bible (e.g. feminist and queer readings)
• LGBT liberation theology and theology of human rights
• Discourses of Christian homophobia and Church politics: a question of power and challenge?
• Theology and biography; internalized stigmatization and spiritual growth; rainbow families; Gay Pride parades and same sex marriage from a Christian faith aspect
• Reporting religiously based hate crimes and hate speeches

The European Forum of LGBT Christian Groups and its partners

The European Forum is a transnational association of 45 member organisations from 24 European countries founded in 1982.
It has experience with transnational trainings for LGBT Christians and human rights activists. The „Safe Space“ pilot project, held in 2005/6, contains the basic tools for the Summer School.

The „Eastern European Forum“ is a self-organized network of LGBT Christians in countries of the former Soviet-Union with members from Estonia, Latvia, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan – with the Ukraine and Russia being the most dynamic countries. There is a close cooperation between the trainers and the coordinators of the „Eastern European Forum“ and „Queer Credo“, a local Christian LGBT group from Kiev.

The trainers are

• Rev. Dr. Kerstin Söderblom (Germany) – Lutheran pastor, pastoral theologian, dissertation on theology and autobiography of lesbian women. She was a co-trainer of the European Forum's 'Safe Space' training course 2005-2007.
• Rev. Hilde Rastaad (Norway) – Pastor of the Norwegian Church, former Co-President of the European Forum, member of Open Church Group.
• Dr. Michael Brinkschröder (Germany) – Roman Catholic theologian and sociologist, dissertation on biblical roots of Christian homophobia; editor of the journal “Werkstatt Schwule Theologie” with many articles on gay liberation and queer theology; male Co-President of the European Forum.
• Rev. Jim Mulcahy (USA) – theologian and pastor of the Metropolitan Community Churches, former Jesuit with international experience in Egypt and Ukraine. MCC is for many years a partner organisation of the European Forum.
• Randi O. Solberg (Norway) - education in business and journalism, former co-president of the European Forum, editor of the book "Let Our Voices Be Heard", and director and co-trainer of the European Forum's 'Safe Space' training course 2005-2007. She now works as senior adviser at the Norwegian Equality and anti-discrimination Ombudsperson's office.

Contact
Michael Brinkschröder, Untere Weidenstraße 2, D-81543 Munich,
tel: +49/89/65102063, email: JLIB_HTML_CLOAKING

Help us to make this summer school a reality!

The European Forum welcomes your donation to The Summer School 2012. In total we still need €15.000 to be able to arrange this important event as planned. Remember to give the reference “The Summer School 2012” on your donation. If you can’t help us with a donation, we welcome your prayer for the project and all the people involved.

Details of the European Forum's bank account:
ING account number 389002
IBAN: NL64INGB 0000 3890 02
BIC: INGBNL2A
Name: European Forum

Bank address:
ING
Postbus 17100
NL-3500 HG Utrecht
The Netherlands

If you need an address use this:
European Forum
Ungerplein 16-b
NL-3033 BV Rotterdam

For more information about The European Forum: http://www.euroforumlgbtchristians.eu