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The World Council of Churches Central Committee on Tuesday, 1 September, adopted a minute on the right of conscientious objection to military service. It cites a recent WCC study showing "that in many places churches face challenges of conscientious objection", which allows those whose conscience prohibits them from military service to engage in alternate means of service.

The World Council of Churches Central Committee again took up the issue of Sudan at meetings in Geneva this week, issuing a “Statement on the Darfur crisis in the context of Sudan”. Since early 2003, the statement says, “the conflict in Darfur has unleashed an overwhelming wave of violence resulting in the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians and an immense humanitarian crisis”.

How does the church interact with a rapidly changing society? On 31 August, members of the World Council of Churches Central Committee spent much of the morning discussing this question in a pair of plenary sessions in Geneva.

“Tears are not enough.” Fernando Enns spoke that phrase in introductory remarks to the World Council of Churches central committee on 28 August. It was repeated several times during a morning plenary session on the WCC’s upcoming International Ecumenical Peace Convocation (IEPC).

Central committee members will choose between three potential sites for the 10th Assembly of the World Council of Churches, to be held in 2013: Busan, South Korea; Damascus, Syria; and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia sounded notes of hope as he delivered his final address as general secretary to the World Council of Churches central committee on 26 August.

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Any solution to the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) must engage the whole nation – not just the eastern region where violence is centred, a small ecumenical team visiting the Bas Congo and Kasai Oriental provinces has learned.

As the world faces an "unprecedented situation of increasing violence, proliferation of non-state armed groups, and non-international armed conflicts", the "effective compliance with the Geneva Conventions" appears as an "urgent priority", said the World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia. In a public statement marking the 60th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, Kobia stressed that "the complexity of today's armed conflicts" requires the international community "to think of new ways to strengthen effective mechanisms to ensure respect for the Geneva Conventions".

An international ecumenical team that visited Honduras on behalf of the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI) has encouraged the churches in Honduras to "accompany the people in their search for peace with justice and the re-establishment of democracy".

"Ecumenical and international support for the United Church of Canada (UCC) in its on-going work for peace with justice in Israel-Palestine" was expressed by the World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia. In a letter sent today to the leaders of the church, as it begins its 2009 General Conference in Kelowna, Canada, Kobia states: "This is a cause the UCC has faithfully supported. It is one in which your efforts to speak truth to power and to discern just solutions with love have inspired other member churches of the WCC."

The more radical social and political changes are, the more likely they are to bring out tension amongst social actors. It is in a context such as this - a Living Letters delegation visiting Bolivia in mid July heard - that Bolivian churches struggle to overcome violence in society.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia urged the Nigerian President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua to "ensure the safety of all citizens" as well as seeing that "all perpetrators [of] acts of violence and human rights violations are brought to justice".

The World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia appealed to Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari to "ensure the safety and security" of Christians in the Punjab province, where three attacks against Christian communities were carried by militant Islamic groups in the last two months. He demanded that the government "take necessary actions against the perpetrators".

By Fredrick Nzwili (*)

By Fredrick Nzwili (*)

By Fredrick Nzwili (*)

Dispelling the myth of "a little peaceful country", an international ecumenical Living Letters team visited Uruguay and discovered how violence manifests itself at the levels of family life, the state and youth, and how the churches in this South American country seek to overcome it.

A team of church representatives from Portugal, Switzerland and Brazil is paying a solidarity visit to churches, ecumenical organizations and civil society organizations in Angola and Mozambique from 18 to 28 July.

In a speech in Kinshasa on 13 July, Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, the general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), challenged churches to end their denial of violence against women. "The churches still seem to relegate violence to the private sphere, and still understand violence as only physical," he said.