Feature story
The reflection—published and available online—offers insight into the assembly theme, “Christ’s love moves the world to reconciliation and unity.”
The introduction notes that the theme is rooted in God’s design for the unity and reconciliation of all, a design made visible in the incarnation of the love of God in Jesus Christ.
“The reflection on the theme is intended to offer to our member churches and the global ecumenical movement a specifically Reformed theological reflection on the issues raised in the theme,” said Rev. Dr Philip Vinod Peacock, World Communion of Reformed Churches executive for witness and justice. “By this is specifically meant a reflection that emerges from the margins.”
The 20 theologians, church leaders, and activists gathered by the World Communion of Reformed Churches reflected on the theme “as God’s invitation into a dance,” stating, "We sing in our languages, dance in our own ways, with the bodies we inhabit; we weave a tapestry of movement, of sound, of breathing.”
The theologians reflect that this is a dance that is worship with all our hearts, minds, bodies, and vulnerability. “In using the metaphor of dancing we include all forms of movement including breathing, recognizing that for some physical movement may be a challenge,” the theologians note. “Nobody is left out of this dance.”
Through several sections—Christology, Love, Reconciliation, Unity, and Movement—the reflection invites readers “to hear the voices of those in the margins, to respond with love, and to act towards reconciliation for unity in all our magnificent diversity.”
It concludes with a call to the churches that includes a commitment to transformative justice in every sense.
“The assembly affords an opportunity for the global church to come together and discern what direction the ecumenical movement should take,” said Peacock.
The reflection was the fruit of a gathering co-hosted by the Presbyterian Church in Korea and the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea held the last week of June in Seoul.
