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A “human chain” singing for peace and a new hymn by Swedish composer and pastor Per Harling are just two of many creative ways people are expressing their yearning for peace.

Ma’alul, a Palestinian village destroyed in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, saw a visit by ecumenical accompaniers in mid-March. “I would have liked to invite you to a real home, not just as a refugee,” said Jad Saba Yusef Salem as he received the group of accompaniers to the village. Today, 95-year-old Salem is one of few remaining survivors from the 75 families who used to live in the village back in 1948.

Peace education to promote mutual understanding and cooperation between people involving the religious and secular sectors is needed to counter uncertainty fed by radicalization and xenophobia, says a leading human rights advocate.

"Let us all learn how to listen without interrupting, and how to speak without accusing, and how to share without pretending, how to enjoy without complaint, how to trust without wavering, how to promise without forgetting, and how to forgive - and forgive is the greatest teaching in Islam - without punishing."

At a time of increased divisions within churches and within rapidly changing societies, Christians are called, more urgently than ever before, to model the values of reconciliation, justice and peace. That’s why a group of theologians and church leaders from different denominations have been meeting near the German city of Augsburg to work together on two documents calling for much closer collaboration in the tasks of peace-building and the care of migrants and refugees.

Heads of churches in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories have reacted with dismay and concern to the Israeli Knesset’s adoption on 19 July 2018 of a new Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, which specifies that “The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.”

A refugee aid cooperation initiative backed by Christians, Jews and Muslims backed by the Federal German Government dubbed “Do you know who I am?” ("Weißt du, wer ich bin?") has launched in Berlin.

Some 3,000 people answered a call by Berlin’s Protestant church to march for “openness and tolerance” as a response to a demonstration in the German capital by extreme rightwing groups.

“We had heard that racism continues to be an issue in the United States,” said Dr Agnes Abuom, moderator of the WCC Central Committee. “But we did not expect to find it so deep, so wide and so pervasive.”

Future collaborative work of the Roman Catholic Church with the WCC was the focus of the latest meeting of executives of their Joint Working Group in Geneva.

David Bradwell of Scottish Faiths Action for Refugees has been on a mission for the past six months trying to raise awareness on what individuals and churches can do to help those fleeing conflicts and wars.

A German alliance of diverse faith-based and civil-society groups has encouraged humanitarian response to refugees in Europe.

Two major crises have marked the months since the WCC called Katalina Tahaafe-Williams to work in Geneva on its migration, indigenous, and multicultural ministry programmes. When she took up the job in October, the European refugee crisis was in full flow. Then in November, terrorists attacked Paris.

Members of a small congregation in Toronto, Canada are celebrating. On Sunday the member of parliament for their riding came to the church to announce that the federal government has granted residency status to a Roma family that had lived under “sanctuary” protection in the church for 18 months.

It is raining. It is cold and windy. Autumn is in the air in northern Greece. We have just arrived at the Idomeni refugee camp in northern Greece, on the border between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). The fast-approaching winter poses as great a threat to the refugees as do the smugglers. In the worst case, winter means death.

<span style="font-weight: bold; "» Indigenous peoples challenge UN draft declaration

Over one hundred faith-based organizations from Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist traditions gathered at the 15th International AIDS Conference in Bangkok to make their voices heard on issues related to HIV/AIDS.

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