Search results

Our series of interviews with Thursdays in Black ambassadors highlights those who are playing a vital role in increasing the impact of our collective call for a world without rape and violence. Rev. Michael Blair is general secretary of the General Council for The United Church of Canada. He is also a member of the World Council of Churches Commission on World Mission and Evangelism.

In a video released on 22 October, Elizabeth Eaton, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and Susan Johnson, national bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, are promoting awareness of domestic violence and offering support.

Pan African Women of Faith will gather in Washington, DC from 13-15 November to advocate for global nutrition and to observe the 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved African peoples to Jamestown, Virginia (USA).

Susan Johnson is the national bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. She was elected in 2007 and is the first woman to hold the post.

Elizabeth Eaton is presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). On 8 August, the ELCA adopted a resolution to encourage church-wide participation in the World Council of Churches Thursdays in Black campaign for a world free from rape and violence.

Through adoption of a resolution in support of the Thursdays in Black campaign in August, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Churchwide Assembly has publicly affirmed the church’s commitment to fostering gender justice. The action is a significant official step that now formally “calls upon all people across all expressions of the church to participate in the #ThursdaysinBlack campaign by wearing black on Thursdays and actively participating in the various reflection and action items.”

Rev. Nathan Day Wilson is a pastor with the Disciples of Christ in the United States and currently holds the position as director of communications at the Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is associate editor and columnist for the Faith and Values section of the Indianapolis Star. Wilson was a lecturer at the seminar, “Equipping each other for Christian Witness in a multi-cultural and multi-faith world”, taking place at the Bossey Ecumenical Institute from 5-15 August.

More than 1,000 attendees at the 15th Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Churchwide Assembly have formally endorsed the Thursdays in Black campaign for a world free from rape and violence.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is standing in solidarity with the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA and WCC member churches in the USA as they demand an end to gun violence, racist rhetoric, and white supremacy.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has released “A 60-Day Journey Toward Justice in a Culture of Gun Violence,” a collection of daily observances that call people to face the painful truth of gun violence and work for its prevention.

In the wake of the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka, the Omnia Institute for Contextual Leadership, based in Chicago, lifted up points of hope that peace will win in the end. In a 25 April message, Shanta Premawardhana, president of the institute, wrote that every person of every faith of every nation deserves to wake up in peace. “Every child deserves to feel safe, welcomed, and alive to the promise that each day brings,” Premawardhana wrote. “I'm sure you know that this is why we build Interfaith Peacemaker Teams in Sri Lanka.”

“What can one person do” can often sound like a lament about powerlessness.

For Thursdays in Black, though, one person can build a movement.

David Emmanuel Goatley, Faculty Director of the Office of Black Church Studies at Duke University Divinity School in North Carolina, USA, learned about Thursdays in Black through his involvement with the World Council of Churches’ Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace. He has now launched the campaign through the Office at Duke University.

World Council of Churches (WCC) representatives involved in the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women say its outcomes reflect many of the pressures affecting efforts towards gender equality globally and call for churches to be active agents for justice in the lead-up to a critical UN review in 2020.

Many ecumenical pioneers, including former WCC general secretary Philip Potter, were in a sense a product of the Sunday School movement. Ulrich Becker tells a story that seems to be in danger of being forgotten.

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.

Anne Mitchell traces Canadian Quaker involvement in the strong ecumenical currents of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that resulted in the founding of the WCC.

World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit expressed heartfelt sympathies to the Tree of Life synagogue and to the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (USA) after a gunman shot and killed 11 people and injured several others during a baby naming ceremony on 27 October.

A conversation on the way home to Chile from the WCC 4th Assembly planted an ecumenical seed that grew into a wonderful experience of Christian unity – the partnership agreement between the Pentecostal Church of Chile and the United Church of Christ.

Dr Agnes Abuom, moderator of the World Council of Churches central committee, will address participants at this week’s “Act Now to End Racism” march and rally in Washington, D.C.