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With a focus on the legacy of nuclear testing and climate change, the World Council of Churches (WCC) is planning a pilgrimage visit to the Marshall Islands on 16-24 November.

An interfaith panel discussion on climate, held 21 September, sent a clear message to the world’s governments: a social and spiritual transformation must underpin policies that care for the earth and the most vulnerable people living on it.

A group of bikers from the Bike for Peace visited the World Council of Churches on 30 August as part of a commemoration in the Place de Nations. 

More than 40 interreligious advisors from the World Council of Churches (WCC) gathered for a webinar on 20 April to explore the increasingly important role of interreligious relations in the WCC’s work in international affairs.

The work of the World Council of Churches (WCC) related to disarmament continues to endure and expand, even as the world faces increasing injustice and tensions that threaten peace on a daily basis.

Virag Kinga Mezei is a Hungarian intern for the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission of the Churches on International Affairs. With a passion for human rights, she regularly engages in discussions while also getting training through the WCC on mechanisms that lead to the achievement of racial and social justice.

Archbishop of York John Habgood, a member of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Central Committee from 1983 to 1991 and moderator of Church and Society from 1983 to 1990, died on 6 March at the age of 91. A scientist and philosopher, Habgood was regarded as one of the most outspoken clerics of his time.

In the wake of the recent Panmunjom Declaration, signed in April by South Korean President Moon Jae-In and Chairman Kim Jung Un of North Korea (DPRK), as well as the June summit of Chairman Kim with US President Donald J. Trump, the WCC central committee has re-assessed the prospects for peace on the troubled Korean peninsula.

After the United States (US) - Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) summit concluded, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit gave thanks to God for what he called “an important first step on the path to a more peaceful and secure future in the region.”

ICAN campaigners in Oslo for the Nobel Peace Prize award were busy the day before planning for what comes next. ”Tomorrow we will have to be silent so let’s make a lot of noise today,” a facilitator told some 150 activists and supporters of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

In a global campaign, the WCC invites people across the globe to extend “A Light of Peace” for the Korean Peninsula and for a world free from nuclear weapons.

The WCC congratulated its partner, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize on 6 October.

In a 15 September letter to Swedish foreign affairs minister Margot Wallström, WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit expressed strong support for religious leaders in Sweden who have requested that Sweden take part in the next step towards entry-into-force for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which opens for signature on 20 September at the United Nations.

As the recent developments of nuclear weapons and increased tensions between United States and North Korea leaders can bring the world to the brink of war, churches around the world are calling for bilateral dialogue, expressing their commitment to peace and nonviolent resolution.

Banning nuclear weapons is something like climbing a mountain. The summit of this mountain – agreement on a ban treaty – is now clearly in view at United Nations negotiations in New York.

Governments’ foreign policies need to change to focus on issues such as global inequalities that drive conflicts in many parts of the world, the moderator of the WCC Central Committee, Agnes Abuom, said at a forum in Berlin with German foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel.

To raise awareness on the work of churches and church-related organizations engaged in peace-building efforts in Colombia, the WCC and Caritas Internationalis are promoting an event in New York on 18 August.

Seventy years after nuclear fireballs exploded over two Japanese cities, an ecumenical group of pilgrims has come to Hiroshima to listen to those who survived and renew the struggle against their own countries’ continued reliance on nuclear weapons.

Bishop Dr Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, chair of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and a member of the church leaders’ pilgrimage to Japan on the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings, pressed the case for the Humanitarian Pledge against nuclear weapons at the Hiroshima Day rally on 6 August 2015.