“The seeds of peace come from the ground.” That is the vision that Rev. Dr Shanta Premawardhana, former director of Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation at the World Council of Churches and now president of OMNIA Institute for Contextual Leadership, tries to follow with his organization.
It is time to revitalize the Asian ecumenical movement to respond to contemporary realities in Asia, according to Mathews George Chunakara, general secretary of the Christian Conference of Asia, in the article that opens the latest issue of The Ecumenical Review, the quarterly journal of the WCC.
The Christian Conference of Asia (CCA), on 11-12 July, held an international consultation on “Towards Revitalising the Ecumenical Movement in Asia.” The gathering of 60 church and ecumenical leaders was organised by the CCA at its headquarters in Chiang Mai, Thailand as a prelude to its Diamond Jubilee celebration.
An interreligious consultation on “Voices of Hope for a New Era” has called for enhanced collaboration between Buddhists and Christians in a spirit of humility and honesty and in service of a shared humanity.
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.
To promote strong measures against climate change, the WCC and the Geneva Interfaith Forum on Climate Change, Environment and Human Rights organized a side event to the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Young ecumenical leaders from Asia have met in Siam Reap, Cambodia to examine how religious traditions can offer resources to overcome religious violence in a changing Asian context.
Participants in a recent WCC consultation in Myanmar have stressed the need to equip churches and ecumenical organizations to build peace, human security and human dignity in order to move beyond conflicts, towards a world of peace.
In South Asia, where conflicts are often fueled by religion, a WCC conference stressed the role of Christians and Hindus as eminent stakeholders in their common search for justice and peace – beyond majority and minority politics.
Thirteen years after the bomb attack at the Catholic Church of Baniarchar in Bangladesh which killed ten people and injured more than twenty, religious groups hold rally in Dhaka demanding justice.
A three-day WCC consultation has featured diverse perspectives from Asia, Africa, Middle East and Europe on the politicization of religion and how this phenomenon contributes to discrimination and persecution of religious minorities around the world.
