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Pacific islands experience lasting impacts of the 50 years of nuclear testing and the region has become a global hotspot of climate change, the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission of Churches on International Affairs (CCIA) learned in its meeting this week in Brisbane, Australia.

At a seminar on African missiology held in Nairobi, Kenya on 13 February, participants gave space to theological reflections linked to the Arusha Conference.

The one-day event, “Re-visiting Arusha 2018: Highlights of African Missiology,” also created space for new reflections based on the Arusha Call to Discipleship.

Highlights of African missiology will be explored during an event to be held in Nairobi, Kenya, on 13 February.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) co-convened a workshop on 28 January to plan faith-based support for the 25-year review of the Beijing Platform for Action, a comprehensive international instrument for addressing the full range of issues faced by women globally.

Christians in Africa have joined in ecumenical celebrations and prayer services to mark the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, observed worldwide from 18-25 January.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) condemned an attack on a Hanukkah celebration at a rabbi´s home north of New York City, on 28 December, stabbing and wounding five people. Several state and local officials have described the location of stabbing as a synagogue.

Simultaneous attacks by extremist insurgents on a military base and Arbinda town in Soum province in the north of Burkina Faso resulted in the deaths of 35 civilians – almost all of them women – as well as seven soldiers. President Roch Marc Christian Kabore has declared 48 hours of national mourning, and all Christmas celebrations have been cancelled.

With great sadness, the World Council of Churches (WCC) received news of the demise of Prof. Vuyani Vellem on 4 December. A member of the WCC’s Commission on Ecumenical Education and Formation, Vellem was director of the Centre for Public Theology and associate professor at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He also served as deputy secretary of the South Africa Council of Churches.

In a message to those gathered in Hampton, Virginia (USA), World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit explored “Race, Repentance, and Reparation: An Ecumenical Opportunity.”

The World Council of Churches (WCC) offers its congratulations to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed as Nobel Peace Prize laureate 2019. Since his election as Prime Minister in April 2018, Mr Ahmed has championed an impressive programme of positive and inspiring reform initiatives, and played a decisive role in the reconciliation of the two synods and fostered unity of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. The achievement which this award particularly recognizes is his leadership in bringing an formal end to the twenty-year long fratricidal conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

At an informal dialogue, faith leaders gathered with representatives from governments, civil society, academia, and the United Nations to talk about financing adaptation, and loss and damage, related to climate change.

South Sudanese church leaders continued to amplify hope for their country, as the people quietly marked the 8th Independence Day, without an official government celebration.
The world’s newest nation which became an independent state on 9 July 2011, is facing enormous challenges including insecurity, economic stagnation and famine due to a new conflict.

Faith leaders across the USA released on 9 July a jointly signed statement entitled “Back from the Brink: Faith leaders call for diplomacy, not war, with Iran.”

WCC News spoke to Rev. Douglas Leonard, coordinator of the Ecumenical United Nations Office and World Council of Churches (WCC) representative to the United Nations in New York, after attending a summit in Washington D.C. that brought together some 45 representatives of churches and faith-based organizations committed to developing an advocacy plan that responds to the current political situation in the Holy Land.

How much is the mission of the church related to people with disabilities? These days we talk a lot about inclusive societies and churches. But, have we arrived there? Are our societies and churches taking seriously the problems and challenges that people with disabilities face on a daily basis? People with disabilities find themselves quite often at the margins of the societies and even of the churches.

Religious communities’ significant role in creating safer, sustainable and inclusive cities has been underlined at the United Nations Habitat Assembly in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

The Arusha Call to Discipleship is at once exhilarating, transformative and challenging to the point of discomfort for some, reflected leaders of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME) during a 20 May press conference and book launch in Helsinki, Finland.

World Council of Churches partners in Arusha, Tanzania reflected on the realities in the communities they serve as they met one year after the World Council of Churches’ Conference on World Mission and Evangelism.

As he delivered the Inaugural Michael Huffington Lecture at Loyola Marymount University on 1 April, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit spoke on “Christ's love moves the world to reconciliation and unity,” the theme of the WCC 11th Assembly in 2021 in Karlsruhe, Germany.

World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit was visiting Los Angeles this week from 30 March to 4 April, preaching at the Hollywood United Methodist Church, delivering a lecture at Loyola Marymount University, and meeting with various ecumenical organizations and groups.