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The World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) was featured in the DW Global Media Forum held 27-28 May in Bonn, Germany. More than 2,000 media professionals, policymakers, and movers from politics and civil society, culture and education, business and science – representing 140 countries – attended the conference.

‘History’ and ‘Time’ were the thirteenth and fourteenth subjects covered in a workshop which took place in Erlangen, Germany, 12-14 December as part of a project “Key Concepts in Interreligious Discourses.”

At a time of increased divisions within churches and within rapidly changing societies, Christians are called, more urgently than ever before, to model the values of reconciliation, justice and peace. That’s why a group of theologians and church leaders from different denominations have been meeting near the German city of Augsburg to work together on two documents calling for much closer collaboration in the tasks of peace-building and the care of migrants and refugees.

After a week of negotiations at the UN climate summit taking place in Bonn, Germany, the WCC, the Lutheran World Federation, and ACT Alliance - together representing more than half a billion Christians worldwide - expressed their concerns at the slow progress governments have made so far.

Friday evening when the leaders of the G20 states will be meeting in Hamburg and discussing global economic, social, environmental and political issues, the churches in Germany are inviting people in Germany and all over the world to a common peace prayer.

The Reformation was a defining moment 500 years ago but can also serve as an inspiration for the next five centuries, South African Anglican Archbishop Thabo Makgoba has told tens of thousands of people at the German Protestant Kirchentag.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The heads of two German Protestant churches and the moderator of the country’s Reformed Alliance say the situation for refugees on the border between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is intolerable and more European aid is needed.

“Today, thankfully, religion is no longer a ‘taboo’ in political science and development literature,” said Rev. Dr Olav FykseTveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) at an international conference on religion and sustainable development.

Following the WCC/UN High Level Conference on the Refugee Crisis in Europe, which took place at the Ecumenical Centre Geneva on 18-19 January, a statement has been issued entitled "Europe’s Response to the Refuge Crisis, From Origin to Transit, Reception and Refuge, A Call for Shared Responsibility and Coordinated Action”.

Churches in Europe have a crucial role to play in responding to the arrival of refugees in Europe, Germany's interior minister has told a gathering in Geneva of governments, United Nations agencies, church and faith groups and civil society organizations.

Reflections from the International Conference on Peace and Reunification on the Korean Peninsula in Arnoldshain, Germany

In the wake of recent crisis with the refugees in Europe, it is “absolutely and critically necessary that all European states take their proper responsibility in terms of reception and support for people seeking refuge, safety and a better future for themselves and their families. This cannot be left only to the states where they enter first,” says the WCC general secretary.

Church leaders from seven countries currently making historic choices for or against outlawing nuclear weapons will embark on a pilgrimage in early August to the two Japanese cities that were decimated by atomic bombs 70 years ago.