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“The Karlsruhe assembly will be the first WCC assembly to take place in Europe since 1968,” note in the editorial the co-editors for the issue Dr Stephen G. Brown, editor of The Ecumenical Review, and Rev. Prof. Dr Fernando Enns, a member of the Ökumenische Rundschau editorial team and of the WCC central committee.
The two journals have prepared a set of articles related to the WCC’s 11th Assembly which have been published in special thematic issues in English and German.
The WCC’s acting general secretary, Ioan Sauca, introduces the theme and content of the assembly from the perspective of the WCC, and shows how the “Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace,” begun at the WCC's 10th Assembly in Busan in 2013, has shaped the WCC's programmes and activities.
Two articles help to sketch the context for the gathering. Reflecting on Europe from the outside, Rev. Dr Peniel Rajkumar, former WCC programme executive for interreligious dialogue and now global theologian for United Society Partners in the Gospel, argues for the need for a paradigm shift to a postcolonial perspective through the deconstruction of colonial mentalities.
Former WCC general secretary Konrad Raiser sketches the history of the “changing relationship” between German Protestantism and the ecumenical movement, tracing the relations of the Evangelical Church in Germany and the Federation of Evangelical Churches in the German Democratic Republic with the WCC.
Rev. Prof. Dr Simone Sinn, academic dean of the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey, analyzes the new study document Churches and Moral Discernment: Facilitating Dialogue to Build Koinonia, produced by the WCC’s Faith and Order Commission.
Two further texts in The Ecumenical Review (both originally published in French in the ecumenical journal Istina) by Ellen K. Wondra and Kristine A. Culp continue the process of “harvesting” the results in recent years of Faith and Order.
Looking to the assembly theme, “Christ’s love moves the world to reconciliation and unity,” Amélé Adamavi-Aho Ekué, academic dean of the Globethics.net Foundation in Geneva, explores the relevance of “gifts” and “giving” in the context of ecumenical relationships.
Hyunju Bae, a member of the WCC's executive and central committees, explores the depths of Christ’s love in the context of the encounter between Jesus and the woman who anoints him with perfume.
All articles in this issue of The Ecumenical Review are free to read online, and the corresponding issue of Ökumenische Rundschau may be downloaded as a PDF free of charge.
Current issue: “On the Way to the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches.”
All articles free to read online
Ökumenische Rundschau, “Die Liebe Christi bewegt, versöhnt und eint die Welt.” Free to read and download as a PDF
