Search results

The life of Rev. Dr Rena Joyce Weller Karefa-Smart is being remembered and commended this week by the WCC fellowship after her passing last week. Karefa-Smart was the first Pan African woman to graduate in 1945 from Yale Divinity School. She was a champion for global ecumenism over the course of a long and distinguished career. An attendee of the first WCC Assembly, she was also a procession leader and author of the liturgies at the second WCC Assembly in Evanston, Illinois (USA).

A large-scale gathering of religious scholars, publishers, and librarians in the United States has yielded promising new ideas for the publications programme of the World Council of Churches (WCC) over the next few years.

The Atlantic School of Theology in Nova Scotia, Canada, celebrated the 70th anniversary of the WCC on 22 November at a chapel service. Also in Canada, the Canadian Council of Churches Governing Board members were pleased to hear from WCC representatives during their meeting in Ontario from 21-23 November.

As a result of a consultation on 9-10 November in Washington, D.C., Pan African Women of Faith have released a Call to Action toward a vision of sustainable communities and an end to hunger and poverty.

A delegation from the Evangelical Church in Germany is visiting the WCC on 26-27 October for an ecumenical learning experience that includes prayers with students from the Bossey Ecumenical Institute, an introduction and overview of the work of the WCC, a meeting with the Lutheran World Federation, and a guided tour of the Ecumenical Centre.

Rev. Dr Angelique Walker-Smith has become the first female in history elected to the post of president of the Historic Black Church Family of Christian Churches Together (CCT). Walker-Smith is a member of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Central Committee and also a member of the WCC Commission on Ecumenical Education and Formation.

Faith leaders and health service providers from across the globe gathered on 27 September for an interfaith prayer breakfast, to join their voices and commit their action to combat the spread of HIV and TB in children.

Rev. Dr Katie Geneva Cannon, the first African-American woman ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA), died on 8 August at age 68.

As students gathered at the WCC Ecumenical Institute at Bossey for an interreligious summer school, they reflected on what brought them to the institute, and what knowledge and insights they will take home.

On the sidelines of the ongoing High Level Political Forum (HLPF) of the United Nations (UN), an official side event was organized by the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Water Network (WCC-EWN).

Some 6-7 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are reviewed every year through a United Nations (UN) mechanism called the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF). The 2018 HLPF is taking place at the UN headquarters in New York, 9-18 July.

The WCC-EAA is inviting a “letter writing action”, encouraging religious leaders and faith communities to speak out for action against Tuberculosis (TB).

In a “Holy Week Statement of Lament and Solidarity” for Maundy Thursday, the Pan African Women’s Ecumenical Empowerment Network demanded an end to gun violence in America. The statement, developed for use in prayer on Maundy Thursday as well as other Holy Week liturgy, decries the response to gun violence against children in the USA as “scarce and insufficient.”

Dr Ulysses Burley III is serving as a WCC delegate to the 62nd Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations in New York City (CSW62), being held 12-23 March. Dr Burley, from Chicago, is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He currently serves on the WCC-Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance HIV Access to Treatment Working Group.

Traveling from Tanzania, Esther Ngulwa brought a sense of hope regarding gender equality as she spoke on 10 March, two days before the start of the 62nd Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW62) in New York City.

The death of Rev. Dr Billy Graham marks a milestone in the landscape of churches worldwide, as he was a highly respected church leader and preacher of the gospel in the USA and around the world, reflected Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary the WCC.

“What do we have the right to manipulate in creation?” The question is at the heart of a Canadian Quaker’s commitment to the process of encouraging member churches of the World Council of Churches (WCC) to reflect on scientific experiments in modifying life forms known as “synthetic biology”.

Promoting responsible agricultural investments was the theme of a session organised by the WCC at the Civil Society Policy Forum of the World Bank Group-International Monetary Fund Annual Meetings held in Washington DC from 9-13 October. “There is no doubt we need to invest more in agriculture – it feeds us all and remains an important source of employment, especially for the world’s poor,” said Athena Peralta, WCC programme executive for economic and ecological justice.

The World Council of Churches - Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance endorses a newly expanded collaboration on HIV between the Medicine Patent Pool and Gilead. On 4 October, the MPP announced a licence with Gilead Sciences for bictegravir, a new integrase inhibitor part of a once-daily, single-tablet HIV regimen currently filed for regulatory approval at the United States Food and Drug Administration and the European Union.

Dr. Emily Welty is an assistant professor in Peace and Justice Studies at Pace University in New York City (USA). She also serves as vice moderator of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs. As an advocate for banning nuclear weapons, Dr Welty is known both for her unwavering belief in a world free from nuclear weapons, and for her strategic thinking toward that goal.