A statement issued at the WCC consultation calls on churches, governments and the United Nations to ensure universal access to water, sanitation and hygiene, while placing access to water prominently on their post-2015 agendas.
The WCC general secretary called diakonia an expression of faith that “embodies the signs of God’s reign and makes it visible in all experiences of hope amidst turmoil, in actions that heal and nurture people and relationships.”
A seminar at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, Switzerland gathered diverse reflections on eco-theology, care for the creation and climate change, and how to build a sustainable world. The contributors included Christian theologians and activists as well as youth.
In a talk during the German Protestant Kirchentag in Hamburg, the WCC general secretary stressed the leading role of churches worldwide in the process of establishing justice and an ecologically-friendly way of life.
At the recent World Social Forum, ecumenical voices warned about the grave consequences of extraction of natural resources and mining, which they say generate a tremendous amount of social and ecological debt.
Joakim Book Jonnson, a salesman for a security company and a member of the Church of Sweden, transformed his urban commuter life when he decided to leave, at least temporarily, no ecological footprint.
The German Protestant aid agency Brot für die Welt has handed a steering wheel, symbol of its water campaign, over to the WCC, thus symbolically handing responsibility for this concern and a newly formed Ecumenical Water Network.