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The Council for World Mission published a statement, entitled “I Can’t Breathe,” reflecting that black and minority ethnic communities, as well as migrant workers, are treated as cheap and disposable labour, frequently denied equal rights, wages and dignity. “COVID-19 reveals the pandemic of inequality that is all around us,” reads the statement. “These statistics and realities frame lives, deaths and a system.”

The World Council of Churches (WCC) condemned an attack on a Hanukkah celebration at a rabbi´s home north of New York City, on 28 December, stabbing and wounding five people. Several state and local officials have described the location of stabbing as a synagogue.

Upon the death of Rev. Dr Edwin Mulder, a major figure in global Protestantism in the 20th century, WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit expressed both condolences and gratitude in a letter to Mulder’s family.

Extremists who prey upon believers of other faiths in the name of their religion or belief are to be called out and condemned for their “abhorrent incitement” in the strongest terms, says WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit.

Bishop Mary Ann Swenson has a unique position in observing and advocating for women’s rights or, as she would quickly clarify, “the fair treatment of human beings” no matter what their gender. As bishop-in-residence at the Hollywood United Methodist Church, she ministers to church members who were not only present at this week’s Golden Globe Awards – they were the nominees. And, as vice-moderator of the WCC Central Committee, she is part of a global parish, traveling to communities far removed from the privilege of Hollywood, where violence occurs against women who are seen by their own communities as having no voice and no rights.

The first ever action plan specifically designed to enable religious leaders to prevent incitement to violence - the Plan of Action for Religious Leaders and Actors to Prevent Incitement to Violence that Could Lead to Atrocity Crimes - was launched on 14 July by Secretary-General António Guterres at a meeting at United Nations Headquarters in New York.

A public panel on “Interfaith Hospitality in a World of Islamophobia” explored how faith communities can respond effectively to increasing tendencies of Islamophobia. Focusing primarily, but not exclusively, on the American context, the panel, organised by the Wesley Theological Seminary, a leading Methodist seminary in the United States, offered diverse perspectives on what interfaith hospitality might entail in today’s world.

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.

“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.”

In the Washington DC region on 18 April, Jim Winkler, general secretary of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, welcomed a contingent from the WCC who, with others, will be spending 18-25 April on a WCC-sponsored racial justice listening and support visit to several US communities which have suffered violent incidents related to race.

“Racism remains an issue that divides society and even families,” said Dr Agnes Abuom, moderator of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC), in a Washington DC workshop on “the theological basis for lifting the voice of the marginalized.” She noted that these dramatically relevant words were not her own, but are drawn from a WCC study on race undertaken in the 1990s.

When Stephen Sidorak speaks about “A Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace to Japan on a Matter of Life and Death” his voice rings with passion, commitment and regret along with a yearning that nuclear weapons must never be used in anger again.

The United States has the biggest economy on planet earth. It is of great concern to Rev. Dr Susan Henry-Crowe, however, that such a moniker for her country does not always mean resources are available to the population in an equitable way.

To promote open discussions on the theological and practical discourse, narrative and experiences on implications for the work of the multi-religious organizations on religion, violence and extremism, the WCC, along with the General Board of Church and Society of The United Methodist Church and the General Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists held a Symposium on the Role of Religion and Faith-Based Organizations in International Affairs.

Important votes at the United Nations (UN) in early November give an indication of how much of the world wants new action to eliminate nuclear weapons, and how determined the main nuclear powers and their allies are to resist such long-overdue change.

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.

Four weeks of negotiations on nuclear weapons came to a close on Friday 22 May, as the Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ended without a formal agreement. Despite the outcome, a bright new prospect towards a world without nuclear weapons has emerged in the form of a Humanitarian Pledge, now endorsed by 107 states, which promises “to fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons”.