On 5 February, shortly after Konrad Raiser’s 80th birthday, ecumenical experts from different generations, confessions and continents will meet in Geneva to discuss the newest publication by the former general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), titled The Challenge of Transformation: An Ecumenical Journey.
In the book, Raiser recounts the challenges and issues facing the WCC since he joined the WCC staff as a young theologian in 1969 to his time as the WCC’s general secretary from 1993 to 2003.
The book presentation and panel discussion, in which Raiser will participate, is one of the events commemorating the WCC’s 70th anniversary.
Raiser joined the WCC as a study secretary in 1969 in the Commission on Faith and Order. In 1973, he was appointed WCC deputy general secretary, with responsibilities from 1979 as staff moderator of the Unit on Justice and Service. As deputy general secretary, he was one of the closest colleagues of general secretary Philip Potter.
Following the presentation of the book by Raiser in dialogue with the translator and editor of the English edition, Stephen Brown, three panellists will pick up themes from the final chapter written for the English edition. In this chapter, Raiser focuses on the “pilgrimage of transformation” on which the WCC has embarked.
Programme:
8:30 – 9:15 am: Ecumenical prayer service at the Ecumenical Centre chapel
Preacher: Rev. Dr Staccato Powell, WCC Central Committee member for the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
09:30 – 10 am: Book presentation, Visser ’t Hooft Hall (video livestream available)
with the participation of Rev. Dr Konrad Raiser (author), Dr Stephen Brown (translator and editor), WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit
10 – 11:30 am: Panel discussion, Visser ’t Hooft Hall (video livestream available)
with the participation of:
- Georges Lemopoulos, coordinator of the WCC 70th anniversary, WCC deputy general secretary until his retirement in 2017.
- Dr Agnes Abuom, moderator of the WCC Central Committee
- Miriam Weibye, WCC Central Committee member for the Church of Scotland and moderator of the Communications Committee
- Responder: Rev. Dr Konrad Raiser
11:30 am – 12:15 pm: Aperitif and book signing, Ecumenical Centre lobby
12:30 – 1:30 pm: Tray lunch in Salle II and III
An opportunity to engage informally with Konrad and Elisabeth Raiser
2 – 3:30 pm: Documentary screening: Kreisgang, Willem A. Visser ’t Hooft Hall
Kreisgang (“walking in a circle”) is a documentary produced by Elisabeth Raiser about her father Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, a physicist who worked on atomic weapons under the Nazi regime in Germany during the second world war, but later became a philosophy professor who espoused pacifism. The film is both a tribute to von Weizsäcker's philosophical thinking as well as an expression of Elisabeth's own searching and walking in her father's path. It will be shown in German with English subtitles.
