Signs of hope amidst continuing challenges
This slideshow was produced by the WCC Communications Department as a contribution to the WCC's 60th anniversary.
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The integrity of creation
The World Convocation on Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation in Seoul, Korea, 1990, was envisaged as a gathering of churches seeking to speak authoritatively on critical contemporary issues. It was the focal point of a process launched by the 6th Assembly's appeal for a common struggle against threats to life. © WCC/Peter Williams
Come, Holy Spirit,…
…Renew the Whole Creation was the theme of the 7th assembly in Canberra, Australia, 1991. "Winds of change have swept through South Africa and Eastern Europe, but the end of the cold war has not ushered in an era of peace," said WCC general secretary Emilio Castro. The "Gulf War" in Kuwait and Iraq had begun three weeks earlier. A controversial presentation on the assembly theme by Dr Chung Hyun Kyung of Korea placed the topic of gospel and culture, classical versus contextual theology, higher on the ecumenical agenda. Her presentation included Indigenous dancers, an invocation of spirits, as well as the burning of a list of martyrs (pictured), from Hagar to the students of Tiananmen Square, to "our brother Jesus tortured and killed on the cross". © WCC/Peter Williams
A gracious fellowship in Christ
In 1993, the 5th World Conference on Faith and Order was held in the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela. In the tradition of Faith and Order, it sought unity through dialogue on doctrinal and theological differences. Working on the all-encompassing study on the "nature of the church and the unity we seek", the Conference described koinonia as "a gracious fellowship in Christ expressing the richness of the gift received by creation and humankind from God."
Picture: Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Anglican, South Africa; Rev. Dr Günther Gassman, director of Faith and Order, Lutheran, Germany; Rev. Dr Soritua Nababan, Lutheran, Indonesia.
© WCC/Peter Williams
Religion is not about hatred
The violent breaking apart of Yugoslavia tore at the WCC. Vigorous debate and disagreement was especially bitter because religious affiliations were often used to inflame hatreds between Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims. The WCC and the Conference of European Churches (CEC) organized several high-profile meetings between religious leaders (pictured: Patriarch Pavle, Serbian Orthodox Church, left, and Cardinal Franjo Kuharic, Roman Catholic Church, right, in Geneva 1992), as well as channelling aid to victims of the war. © WCC/Peter Williams
The anguish of genocide
In January 1994, the WCC central committee went to Johannesburg to celebrate the end of apartheid. In April of that year, Nelson Mandela was sworn in as the first black, democratically elected president of South Africa; tragically, a few thousand kilometres to the north, a genocide of enormous proportions was taking place in Rwanda. The WCC assisted a reconciliation process almost as soon as the war ended, but there was a felt need for justice in the traumatized nation and fear that perpetrators of the genocide, then in refugee camps across the border, were planning to finish their slaughter. Picture: "The scars of memory" an installation by Ghanaian artist Kofi Setordji at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Switzerland, 2003. © WCC/Peter Williams
The importance of the member churches
When the central committee met in Moscow in 1989 (pictured: a worship service at the Moscow Baptist Church), everyone knew the Council was in a transition due to the global context as well as church and ecumenical situations. Renewal, if not radical reform, was essential. Eight years later, the study and consultation process launched in Moscow led to the policy statement "Towards a Common Understanding and Vision of the World Council of Churches". It stated that the Council should concentrate more on relations with and among its churches, with the understanding that the WCC is not an external agency providing programmes, but a body of which they are essential members. © WCC/Peter Williams
Under the cross in Africa
The 8th WCC assembly in Harare, Zimbabwe, 1998, was a jubilant celebration of 50 years in fellowship. There was a special focus on Africa, recalling the positive role of the ecumenical movement in overcoming colonialism and racism on the continent. Zimbabweans, living under authoritarian rule for 18 years following a century of British and white supremacist colonial oppression, were courageous enough to tell the visitors of their own fears and disenchantment, of poverty, violence and disease, even though president Mugabe's secret police infiltrated assembly events. © WCC/Chris Black
A critical moment for inter-religious dialogue
In 2005, at a time when world religions were widely accused of neglecting spirituality and blamed for being at the root of numerous conflicts, the WCC invited partners of different faiths to assess the present and imagine the future together, at an inter-religious encounter in Geneva. Picture: Dr Yehuda Stolov, a Jewish scholar from Israel, and Heba Raouf Ezzat, a Muslim from Egypt. © WCC/Peter Williams
March for Peace
A river of light flowed through downtown Porto Alegre, Brazil, in February 2006 as up to two thousand people took part in a candle-lit march for peace. The march was part of the 9th WCC assembly and of the 2001-2011 Decade to Overcome Violence. Two Nobel peace laureates addressed the crowds: the Argentinean Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and the South-African archbishop Desmond Tutu. © WCC/Paulino Menezes
