World Council of Churches (WCC) deputy general secretary Isabel Apawo Phiri offered the annual Steve de Gruchy Memorial Lecture on 24 April in Cape Town, South Africa.
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.
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.
Botshelo Moilwa, a young African woman from Gaborone, Botswana, called on churches to affirm the dignity of women amidst the realities of HIV and AIDS and sexual violence, if they are to realize the Christian vision of justice and peace.
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.
