Search results

In a session on 4 July in Geneva, Switzerland, the WCC Central Committee focused on one of the world’s most threatening challenges – climate change.

While churches around the world live in very different contexts and may be separated by different doctrinal teachings, they do have one concern in common: will planet earth still be a fit place for their children to live?

Climate change is increasing inequality and impacting territorial integrity and security as well as provoking the forced displacement of people seriously affecting human rights of people.

Addressing the urgency of witnessing to the gospel in current ecumenical and multi-religious situations, the WCC will develop materials to assist churches engaged in both ecumenical dialogue and inter-religious dialogue.

Church leaders, who were part of the negotiations between South Sudan's president Salva Kiir and former vice president Riek Machar, now urge that the peace agreement come into immediate effect, ending a five-month conflict in the world’s newest country.

More than 400 representatives of German ecumenical groups attending an assembly in Mainz, Germany have affirmed their commitment to move forward in a “pilgrimage of justice and peace” – a call from the WCC 10th Assembly.

A wealth of substantive engagements with and responses to contemporary trends in the theology and practice of mission and evangelism are featured in the newest issue of International Review of Mission.

In an ecumenical harvest, a spate of European and North American church bodies are entering agreements recognizing each other’s baptisms.

In his Easter reflections, the WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit called this year an “opportunity for shared testimony to the Resurrection” since churches from both eastern and western traditions of Christianity will celebrate Easter on the same day, Sunday 20 April.

A communiqué adopted at a WCC consultation describes human trafficking as a “serious human rights violation” and its consequences are “most horrific results of the economic and social disparities that increase the vulnerability of millions of people”.

In an ecumenical consultation held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, called human trafficking a criminal activity, on rapid increase in the world. Ezeilo said that not a single country or entity has yet been able to stop this practice, and the magnitude of this problem is enormous.

Lent, a season for prayers and reflections by Christians around the world, has become an opportunity for the churches to respond to climate change, an issue which deeply impacts the communities they serve.

Embracing the holistic view of mission as “koinonia” (being in communion with God, all peoples and the whole of creation) has become more than bringing the good news to others, said Kyriaki Avtzi, the WCC programme executive on evangelism, while addressing the theme “Your Kingdom Come” at the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland partnership consultation.

A group of activists from Manipur, India, visited the WCC headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland on 26 March, sharing accounts of human rights violations in their region and efforts to lobby against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act at the 25th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

In an audience with Pope Francis in the Vatican, the WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit stressed the significance of Christian unity. He also expressed appreciation for Pope Francis’s call to pray for peace in Syria and his call for churches to remember the poor, encouraging Christians to work for economic justice.

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity has been globally celebrated this year with prayers, reflections, ecumenical services and events focusing on Paul’s question in Corinthians 1 “Has Christ been divided?” a theme for this year’s prayer materials, prepared by the Canadian churches.

The WCC general secretary, following a session on climate change at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, stressed the “significant role of financial policy-making by the states in addressing climate change.”

Rev. Romi Márcia Bencke, general secretary of the National Council of Christian Churches of Brazil has been honoured with a Human Rights Award presented to her by the Brazilian federal government on 12 December.