Leadership Conference 2021: Respectful conversation with leader of LGBT+ Denmark

One of the most praised speeches at FrikirkeN's leadership conference in November 2021 was a conversation between Susanne Branner Jespersen, Head of Secretariat in LGBT+ Denmark and FrikirkeNet's Secretary General, Mikael Wandt Laursen.

Since an intense and emotional debate at the Folkemødet in 2019, Susanne Branner Jespersen, Head of Secretariat in LGBT+ Denmark and the Secretary General of FrikirkeNet, Mikael Wandt Laursen, have held conversations with each other — not to agree, but to understand each other and find similarities and italicize disagreements in a non-threatening way. All in order to move from either-or positions to a listening and curious approach.
That conversation has led to a real friendship, and this was felt when the two met at FrikirkeNet's leadership conference 2021, where they were interviewed together by journalist Malene Fenger-Grøndahl under the heading “Space for Discord”.
“Mikael is a very caring person. For example, he brought me lunch at work one day when I had a hard time on the home front for a while,” Susanne began when she was asked to say something nice about Mikael.
Mikael returned by highlighting Susanne's openness, confidence and enormously big heart for people.
“You've made my life richer and my perspective bigger,” he said.

Is homosexuality a sin?
Next question was about what they found difficult about the other's views. Susanne mentioned Michael's speech that something is given to us — some God-given absolutes — while Mikael turned it around and mentioned the LGBT community's look into himself and his emotions, highlighting that emotions in his understanding must be mirrored in something different and greater than ourselves.
It wasn't long before the question of sin came up. Mikael explained that he doesn't like to answer it directly because if he says yes to homosexuality being a sin, people hear it as if it's the worst possible sin — something really, really bad.
“But it's not like that! When we were created, we were created as perfect, and that was as male and female. But there was a fall, and that fall has affected all of us -- straight- as well as gay -- all people have suffered a fall. It's also hit us in our sexuality -- I'm hit in my sexuality, and Susanne's hit in hers. And there we need Christ to show us the way back to what God created us for. So yes, homosexuality represents part of the fall of sin, but at the same time it is important to emphasize that the fall of sin has affected us all, so we all need God's grace and transformation to move against him,” he explained, pointing out:
“It is important not to demand anything from people that only Jesus can do. It is Jesus who must change a person's life if there is anything to be changed. We should not make ourselves masters of what God works with in each person. Some of the gay people I talk to experience that there can be a journey in the way they live out their sexuality. Others don't experience it that way. In this context, it is enormously important that I do not say: do such and such. Instead, I point to creation as a beacon and to our need for Christ, because without Christ we cannot. It is the encounter with Christ and his transformation that is all about - but how and how fast the road goes, we cannot make ourselves masters of it.”

Is there a place for homosexuals in the churches?
The quietest thing in the room was when Susanne took the magazine from her mouth and described that she is not too concerned with the right to be married in certain religious communities — after all, you can be married in the folk church if you want a church wedding, she stated. In contrast, she is very concerned with the culture and community of the Free Churches:
“Who is there room for in your community?” she asked.
“Who feels ashamed of who they are? Who is it that you - in the name of the message of love - are crippling? For they will land with us.”
'I have a handful of volunteers who have come out crippled from Christian communities because they've grown up with shame and guilt and internalised homophobia and transphobia and a sense of being unloved, a sense that their families have knocked their hand off them. In fact, I don't think you can be familiar with it. I don't think that as people who meet other people—especially not in a Christian message of love—you can be familiar with it.”
“So it doesn't matter to me whether you can get married or not, whether you can sing praises or not — now I know that it matters to anyone whether you can sing in the choir or preach — but for me it is extremely important that we cherish those children and young people who grow up in communities where they feel they should ashamed to be who they are.”

The rainbow flag must not turn black and white
Norm criticism as well as celibacy were also touched upon in the course of the conversation, as were both asked to describe what they had learned from the other. Again, it turned into two sides of the same coin, because what Mikael pointed out in this regard was Susanne's above description of stunted LGBT people from free church environments, while Susanne had to acknowledge that the LGBT environment is also not always equally inclusive to Christian LGBT people who find their (free) church background valuable and do not want to throw wreckage at it.
“I sometimes tell Susanne to take care that the rainbow flag does not turn black and white,” Mikael said.

Hear the full post here.

Photo: Susanne Branner Jespersen and Mikael Wandt Laursen in debate at Folkemødet 2019. Photographer: Christoffer Fryd