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By rights, it should have been Africa. The World Council of Churches’ (WCC) First Assembly had been held in Europe (Amsterdam), the second in North America (Evanston, USA), the third in Asia (New Delhi). Hopes were raised that Africa would be the next continent to host the council. But questions arose concerning acts of violence and military conflicts in Africa throughout the 1960s, from the Biafran region in Nigeria to Zanzibar and Eritrea, from Algeria to Mozambique and Rhodesia. And so the Fourth Assembly returned to the “safety” of Europe, to Uppsala in Sweden. In one of history’s ironies, Soviet tanks would roll into Prague one month after the assembly’s close.

Where two or three Christians are gathered, you will most likely find them in worship or enjoying fellowship over food. Gather a few thousand Christians in one place, and you will definitely find them engaged in a Bible study.

With over 3,500 participants from all over the world, opportunities for “encounter” are rich and continuous at the 11^th Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) taking place in Karlsruhe, Germany. Intentional gatherings – from small “home” groups to regional meetings also help to connect participants and bring different perspectives to the concerns and hopes being raised under the Assembly theme, “Christ’s love moves the world to reconciliation and unity”.

“My first glimpse of a barrier as a child was the sight of little fish moving back and forth in a fish tank. It was the only home they knew, and if I reached out a hand, they would flee in fear,” remarked Rondy Said, a pastor in Ramallah and responsible for youth work with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL) during a September 1 workshop on Christian Jewish dialogue in the Israeli-Palestinian context.

As participants in the First Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) gathered at Amsterdam during August 1948, the Netherlands bore witness to the violence of the Second World War. The port of Rotterdam was rising from near destruction. Many other cities, towns and villages across Europe were struggling to recover. To the east, Germany and Austria were divided into zones of occupation administered by the Allied Powers. Two months earlier, tensions between the Soviet Union and the Western occupiers of the former German capital led to the start of the Berlin Airlift. Since 1945, publications had been increasing their use of the term “Cold War”.

Sharing the concerns of World Council of Churches (WCC) Lutheran member churches around the world, a Lutheran confessional meeting took place during the recent central committee meeting at the Ecumenical Center in Geneva.