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Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, one of the people who followed in the footsteps of Desmond Tutu as archbishop of Cape Town and Metropolitan of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa announced the death of “the Arch” as he was affectionately known on 26 December, fittingly celebrated in South Africa as the “Day of Goodwill.”

Today the world joins in mourning the passing of a towering figure in the struggle for freedom and for human dignity and rights.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA) has facilitated churches’ engagement in a wide range of critical issues of the world since the last WCC Assembly in Busan, concluded the 58th meeting of the WCC CCIA, gathering church representatives in Johannesburg and online in the 75th anniversary year of the Commission’s creation.

With the welcoming sound of South African drums, the 58th meeting of the World Council of Churches Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA) began this week in Johannesburg, reviewing the work of the commission between two WCC assemblies and discussing the churches’ engagement in critical issues of the world today.

The WCC’s Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA) will meet on 2-6 November in Johannesburg and online, reviewing its work between the two WCC assemblies and preparing for the upcoming WCC 11th Assembly in Karlsruhe, Germany.

Dr Kobus Gerber, the first general secretary of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa, passed away in the early hours of 6 August, following heart surgery.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is mourning the death of Rev. Prof. Dr Mary-Anne Plaatjies van Huffel, a South African pastor and academic who was currently serving as the WCC president from Africa since 2013. She passed away on 19 May.

The Dutch Reformed Church held its general assembly from 6-11 October in Benoni, South Africa.
The church adopted a new policy on sexual abuse and misconduct, and also publicly strengthened its commitment to gender justice. The new policy, the result of conversations over many years about the way in which women are sometimes treated in the church, describes in detail which acts could be seen as sexual abuse or misconduct.

Churches across southern Africa are publicly saying #EnoughIsEnough,” with many denominations and congregations continuing to issue strong statements, arrange special prayer events, and speak out against rising levels of violence.

Both the Dutch Reformed Church and the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa (UPCSA) have been discussing gender justice and how to keep the momentum going on the unprecedented public demand for change.

World Council of Churches leaders spoke on the theme “Hospitality: On a Pilgrim’s Way of Justice and Peace" at a symposium on 23 August at the Protestant Theological University Amsterdam.

Most South Africans know of Brigalia Bam as chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), where she served from 1999 to 2011. Previously secretary general of the South African Council of Churches, and already an IEC commissioner, she was chosen by then-President Nelson Mandela from the list of parliamentary nominees for this critical role. In a country that had recently been on the brink of racial civil war, she guided South Africans with humour, tolerance and impartiality along the path of inclusive democracy.

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.

After an historic meeting in South Africa in June 2017, study groups within the WCC Faith and Order Commission are using theological reflection as a tool to build unity between churches. The questions Faith and Order considers are not abstract issues but, in many contexts across the world, matters of life and death.

More than five decades after the relationship between the WCC and the South Africa-based Netherdutch Reformed Church of Africa (NHKA) was broken, the first approach towards the church resuming its WCC membership was taken with an informal meeting between the NHKA leadership and the WCC staff member in charge of membership matters.

Hope in a Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace formed the integral thread for proceedings at the meeting of the Central Committee of the WCC in Trondheim, Norway this week. The 2016 meeting took place 22-28 June, the second gathering since the Central Committee was elected at the WCC 10th Assembly in Busan, Republic of Korea in 2013.