Search results

Thirty-five years into the response to HIV and AIDS, it remains a disease that not only thrives on, but exploits the lines of exclusion and inequality in society. In the Philippines, where there has been an alarming increase in people testing positive for HIV, the country’s National Council of Churches recognized that more than words were needed. While dialogue and debate were important, they needed to translate into action, given the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor in Filipino society, and a faith-based and societal milieu still dominated by a sex-negative theology.

Kerlan Fanagel’s submission to the Human Rights Council (HRC), delivered on the council’s 10th anniversary, highlighted the plight of the Lumad in Mindanao, a group of people who have been displaced from their traditional lands in the southern Philippines.

Churches are engaged at the grassroots level throughout the world in the response to HIV and AIDS, but the struggle against the disease and those stigmatized for being HIV positive needs to continue, say church leaders.

The Central Committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC), at its meeting in Trondheim, Norway, 27 June 2016, has elected a new executive committee with 11 new members.

Sitting in a tent at the Souda camp, on the island of Chios in Greece, a Pakistani family of 12 recalls the lives they had in their home country. They had everything except safety. Muhammed and his wife, Asia, along with their 10 children, fled their home country in search of a place where they weren’t constantly fearing for their lives.

How can we begin building peace in an era of religious extremism and acts of terror? Start by reaching out in your own neighborhood, suggests Rev. Arshad Gill, general secretary of the Presbyterian Church of Pakistan.

The archbishop and primate of Hong Kong, Rev. Dr Paul Kwong, has been elected as the new chair of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC).

The Christian Conference of Asia has condemned police brutality against farmers in Mindanao, Philippines. The CCA spoke out against “the violent response and shootings by the police on farmers in the Philippines” and expressed solidarity with the leadership of the United Methodist Church in its continuing protection of some 6,000 farmers and tribal leaders who are threatened by violence from the Philippine National Police.

As participants in a workshop on HIV offered their personal reflections, they shared how their hearts have been deepened and changed by a dialogue facilitated by the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP).

“I came here to know the difference between HIV and AIDS, and to distinguish the role of women, especially women pastors, in educating, empowering, and enlightening people in her flock about their view on HIV,” said Rev. Mary Ann Kadile, a pastor from the United Church of Christ in the Philippines. She traveled from Mindanao to San Pablo City, Laguna to participate in a workshop on HIV led by the National Council of Churches in the Philippines.

A bomb attack by terrorists using the name of religion in Lahore on Easter Sunday marked the third time Christians have been targeted in Pakistan in three years, illustrating the vulnerability of people in the country.

The World Council of Churches' general secretary has strongly condemned the lethal terror attack in Pakistan on 27 March as shocking and brutal, urging the government to ensure that its communities can be better protected against fanatics.

Muslims are a minority in Norway and a majority in Pakistan. From 12-15 March, these roles changed at a conference hosted by The Church of Pakistan in Lahore, Pakistan.

As the 21st Conference of Parties (COP 21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change came to a close in Paris, a consultation organized by the National Council of Churches in the Philippines and the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance of the WCC on 11 December in Quezon City, Philippines considered “The Right to Food and Life in the Context of Climate Change.”

Some 40 individuals from churches, faith-based groups, community-based organizations, academia and the government will gather in the Philippines on 11 December for a consultation entitled The Right to Food and Life in the Context of Climate Change.

How and in which ways are money and finance shaping the world economy and society? What ought to be the roles of money and finance and what can we do together as faith communities to make the prevailing international financial architecture more just and compassionate?

Mere days after terror attacks in Beirut and Paris, the theme of an interfaith meeting of Christians and Muslims at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva on “Religion, Peace and Violence” was entirely appropriate, said participants.

During the 4th United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights, the WCC, in collaboration with the ACT Alliance and Lutheran World Federation, organized a side-event on “Faith-based organizations’ contribution to the protection of communities’ land rights: lessons learnt and good practices from Africa, Asia and Latin America” at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva.

"In COP21 we decide whether the glass is half full or half empty, but the glass must be transparent", tweeted climate activist Yeb Saño at the end of a day full of activities engaging leadership and staff members of the WCC, the Lutheran World Federation and ACT Alliance, at the Ecumenical Centre, in Geneva, Switzerland.

Participants in Manilakbazan 2015, called by some the “Lumad caravan”, have come to Manila for a month-long series of activities and protests to bring attention to human rights violations in Lumad communities of the Philippines.