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Governments’ foreign policies need to change to focus on issues such as global inequalities that drive conflicts in many parts of the world, the moderator of the WCC Central Committee, Agnes Abuom, said at a forum in Berlin with German foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel.

Dr Pauline Webb, a British Methodist laywoman, multi-talented Christian communicator and ecumenical statesperson, died at the age of 89 on 27 April 2017 in Muswell Hill, London.

“What is the role of churches in peace-building? How are they actually involved? Which are the ecumenical challenges, and especially which are the ecumenical opportunities that arise from joint efforts at peace building?” These were some of the questions on the table as the Executive of the Joint Working Group of the WCC and the Roman Catholic Church met in Dublin, Ireland on 24-26 April.

“What contribution can those involved in the interreligious work of the churches offer in the current challenges faced in Europe at the present time?” This was the primary question addressed during a 29-31 March meeting of people working as interreligious officers for various churches in Europe and church-related organizations.

The World Council of Churches, Council for World Mission and United Reformed Church, held a joint consultation on Multiple Religious Belonging, 14-16 December, at Queen’s Ecumenical Centre, Birmingham UK. The consultation which included members of different faith groups, renowned theologians and grassroots interfaith activists extended and enriched continuing conversations on the lived reality of multiple religious belonging and religious hybridity. The consultation included panel discussions from inter-religious; theological; ritual and socio-anthropological; and interdisciplinary perspectives.

Baden-Württemberg minister-president, Winfried Kretschmann, has expressed gratitude to the churches for putting Christian service and neighbourly love into practice, and not only at Sunday sermons. The German state’s governor Kretschmann gave his message in a meeting with the general secretary of the World Council of Churches, Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, in Stuttgart last Thursday.

The experience of his father’s fleeing Nazi Germany in 1938 and then living alien and stateless in Sweden provides biblical theologian Hans Ucko with the touchstone of his writing about stateless persons.

A 50-year-old religious text can shape interreligious relationships crucial for peace-building today, found participants in a workshop organized by the WCC and attended by guests from the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID) on 28 October.

Churches need a “holistic and inclusive vision of just peace” in the face of national and international conflicts, the moderator of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC), Dr Agnes Abuom, said at an international peace consultation in Berlin.

“What happens when we journey on a pilgrimage, a pilgrimage of justice and peace, with people who share our values but who may or may not accept the institution of the church? And what does it mean to be on a pilgrimage of justice and peace, when the next generation shares our concerns for justice and peace, and want to follow God, but do not share our spirituality as confined by church and by tradition?”

Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Christian and Buddhist religious leaders met this week in Assisi to discuss peace, while across the ocean in New York City global political leaders assembled at the United Nations also focussed on a troubled world.

From Paris to Pakistan, Orlando to Myanmar, Iraq to Nigeria, each day witnesses conflict and violence perpetrated in the name of religion or committed against persons because of their religious identity.

A plenary discussion on support by religious communities for the rights of children, and a first draft of the statement of “principles for child-friendly churches,” captured the imagination of the Central Committee of the WCC on 27 June. The document will now undergo further revision and be resubmitted at the next WCC executive committee meeting.

Encouragement, inspiration and storytelling animated the plenary discussion of the Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace.

“Creation is God’s work, every day, according to Luther. Creation ultimately belongs to God. We are accountable to God for what we do as partners in God’s creation, as deacons of God’s creation. Do we bring hope for human beings and the whole of creation? This is the question we in the Christian Church must ask one another,” said WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit.

A refugee aid cooperation initiative backed by Christians, Jews and Muslims backed by the Federal German Government dubbed “Do you know who I am?” ("Weißt du, wer ich bin?") has launched in Berlin.

Women and children figure prominently as refugees in mass movements of people in recent months and their rights will be at the forefront of a summer school organized in Greece by the Conference of European Churches.

Three times a week refugees are invited to Luthergemeinde - or Luther Parish - in central Halle, Germany to visit with parish members. Sometimes they cook and sometimes they just meet to talk and get acquainted. This initiative is a creative effort to integrate some of the 400 refugees that have been placed around the vicinity of the parish.

Some 3,000 people answered a call by Berlin’s Protestant church to march for “openness and tolerance” as a response to a demonstration in the German capital by extreme rightwing groups.

At the Wider Outlook Works Festival, as people observed the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, the WCC general secretary spoke about repentance and a change to a better direction.