After a visit to Israel and Palestine on 21 February through 1 March, a delegation of South African and African-American church leaders, released a Group Pilgrimage Statement on Israel and Palestine.
World Council of Churches leaders spoke on the theme “Hospitality: On a Pilgrim’s Way of Justice and Peace" at a symposium on 23 August at the Protestant Theological University Amsterdam.
Reconciliation was once primarily seen as a message of the church but is now used by secular leaders trying to establish peace in communities torn by conflict and war, the WCC president for Africa, the Rev. Mary Anne Plaatjies van Huffel, has said at a major Protestant gathering in Germany.
Hope in a Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace formed the integral thread for proceedings at the meeting of the Central Committee of the WCC in Trondheim, Norway this week. The 2016 meeting took place 22-28 June, the second gathering since the Central Committee was elected at the WCC 10th Assembly in Busan, Republic of Korea in 2013.
Forty years after the Soweto uprising, leaders of churches in conflict-torn countries gathered in South Africa to study the ways of peace and reconciliation.
Christians need a "spirituality of resistance" to face oppression, violence and experiences of defeat, the WCC general secretary said in an address at Germany’s biggest Protestant gathering.
An influential document full of hopes and aspirations, having received worldwide acclaim for highlighting the struggle of Palestinians against oppressive Israeli occupation, continues to seek a future after its fifth anniversary was celebrated in December last year.
Inspired by the theme “pilgrimage of justice and peace”, the Central Committee of the WCC, a chief governing body of the Council, has set directions for the work of the Council from 2014 to 2017.
Church representatives at a recent Oikotree Global Forum in Johannesburg, South Africa stressed the need to support peoples' movements promoting justice in the economy and ecology, a concern, they say, that lies at the heart of the faith.