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In a letter to G20 leaders, global religious leaders representing half a billion Christians in over 100 countries warned that rising global temperatures will have increasingly disastrous consequences on impoverished and vulnerable communities that contribute least to the climate crisis.

As a symposium on digital justice drew to a close on 15 September, participants  were weighing their vision for the future in a landscape fraught with injustice. Those taking part in the symposium—be they theologians, church leaders, politicians, students, journalists or professional communicators—are all in fact, “digital communicators,” and this broad array of people who care worked to hone their collective thoughts into recommendations they believe can help the world.

While the concept of “public space” has been around since ancient times, the landscape has turned digital, resulting in a confrontation between the so-called “elite” on the one hand and those fighting for a just society on the other.

If digital social justice begins with connectivity, perhaps it ends when that connectivity is usurped by oppressive regimes, extremists, fake news and hate speech. A “press club”-style conversation on 13 September found theologians, politicians, church communicators, activists and journalists from around the world weighing in on the short but exceedingly complex question, “Digital instruments – Blessing or Curse?”

Besides the dangerous monopoly structures in the digital economy, there is a danger for liberty and justice as they are crucial for pluralistic democracies in the digital world, says Dr Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria. Bedford-Strohm is also chairperson of the council of the Evangelical Church in Germany and was a keynote speaker at the opening of the symposium exploring challenges and opportunities for a more just digital future, in Berlin on 13-15 September, and co-organized by the EKD.

Philip Lee is general secretary of the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC). Below, he reflects on some of the questions that will be explored during the upcoming international symposium “Communication for Social Justice in the Digital Age,” scheduled for 13-15 September. 

As people in many regions suffer from the effects of record-breaking heat, devastating wildfires and extreme flooding, World Council of Churches (WCC) deputy general secretary Rev. Dr Odair Pedroso Mateus lifted up those suffering in prayer while, at the same time, urgently reacting to the latest scientific evidence that the global temperature is rising.

A 12 July statement from the South African Council of Churches notes with deep concern the violence and destruction of property that is engulfing the nation. “This violence is resulting in untold suffering,” the statement reads.