Churches are engaged at the grassroots level throughout the world in the response to HIV and AIDS, but the struggle against the disease and those stigmatized for being HIV positive needs to continue, say church leaders.
From Paris to Pakistan, Orlando to Myanmar, Iraq to Nigeria, each day witnesses conflict and violence perpetrated in the name of religion or committed against persons because of their religious identity.
In 1982, shortly after Dr Sasiprabha Stanley married, she traveled with her husband to Odisha, in eastern India, to a village called Champakenda. “That was the first time I stepped into another state where I did not know the language. I was a foreigner, simply sitting and watching the women.”
In South Asia, where conflicts are often fueled by religion, a WCC conference stressed the role of Christians and Hindus as eminent stakeholders in their common search for justice and peace – beyond majority and minority politics.
While reflecting on the theme of the WCC upcoming assembly in Busan, Indian churches stressed the importance of celebrating life in fullness, vibrancy, dynamism and fervour irrespective of caste, creed, colour, class, gender or ethnicity.
