Search results

The moment religious leaders from around 40 faith-based organisations worldwide agreed to keep defending the individual right to seek asylum during a gathering in Geneva marked a high point on the eve of the Global Refugee Forum, the world's biggest such international gathering.They met at a one-day event on 12 December at the World Council of Churches (WCC), chaired by an Armenian archbishop and a UN diplomat who was once a Turkish legislator.

Amidst deaths and displacement, church leaders in eastern Africa are re-stressing a warning against floods, while appealing for support for communities displaced by the climate change disaster.

Children who gathered prior and during  the New Global Financial Pact, held 22-23 June in Paris, delivered a clear message to President Macron and world leaders: the existing colonial economic model must be replaced with one that prioritizes humanity over profits.

At a young age, Tony Rinaudo got angry at some of the environmental destruction while growing up in an agricultural region of the Owens Valley in Australia's Victoria state and, driven by his faith, did something.

According to the fifth mark of the Anglican Church's mission, the church aims to protect and renew the earth's creation and sustain it. The Anglican Church of Southern Africa environmental network is dedicated to helping churches and dioceses fulfill God's calling to be earth-keepers and to care for creation.

Amid a busy COP27, WCC News walks and talks with Collins Shava, a young Lutheran from Zimbabwe who followed many issues from a personal perspective.

Rev. Dr Lesmore G. Ezekiel, director of programmes at the All Africa Conference of Churches, reflects below on how people of faith are inspired and motivated to take action on climate change, not only at COP27 but beyond.

As a severe drought triggered a humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa, churches and several humanitarian organizations there urged foreign debt suspension to enable the countries to tackle the catastrophe.

Amid a warning that a famine is “at the doorstep” in eastern Africa, church leaders are re-stressing urgent action to save millions of people caught in a drought described as the worst in 40 years.

The signs are on the wall. The last decade was the warmest on record. Of the 20 warmest years, 19 occurred since 2000. And evidence indicates that this is due to the rise of greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activity. World’s scientists have warned that, at the current rate, the world could cross 1.5˚C hotter as soon as 2030. That’s less than a decade from now, well within the lifespan of most people alive today

Recalling believers’ mandate to act as stewards and beneficiaries of God’s creation, the World Council of Churches (WCC) Assembly gathered in morning prayer on the first day of September, the Orthodox Day of Prayer for Creation and the start of an ecumenically observed Season of Creation. At the heart of the liturgical action was a combining of vessels of water from each inhabited region of the earth, a “gathering of the waters” reflecting the earliest act of creation in Genesis 1:9.

On World Food Safety Day, clerics and farmers in Kenya reflected about aflatoxin—a group of poisons found in maize and peanuts—that continue to cause deaths and related diseases in the East African country.

In drought-stricken regions in eastern Africa, churches and church congregations continue to pray for rain, as the weather conditions leave millions of people without food, water and pasture for their animals.

As the war in Ukraine triggers an unexpected rise in food and commodity prices in African markets, church leaders are reaching out to communities struggling with food insecurity and shortages.

Churches in South Africa are actively responding to the flood disaster in KwaZulu Natal, in which at least 440 people have died. The floods—the strongest to hit the province in recent times—were triggered following a week of heavy rainfall in the province bordering the Indian Ocean in the east of the country.

Over 23-29 October, a Global Conference of Africa and Africans in the Diaspora (AAD) revisited the historical 1945 Manchester Pan-African Conference and critically reviewed progress made since then. Speakers and participants also worked to determine and develop effective global strategies to radically change the lot of Africans and people of African descent globally—and thereby defeat the scourge of racism in the world.