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Using Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, I crafted the following text to reflect the timelessness of Dr King’s speech, and to share my own personal dream within my context of the Holy Land. I am attempting to honor the original words of Dr King while, at the same time, making it clear that his passion and unflagging determination are still badly needed today. May the spirit of our dreams find unity in pursuing peace and justice for all human beings.

I love riding subways, well, all trains for that matter. I am a people watcher. Sometimes I just stare off as station-wall signs speed by in a blur. This time, however, something was different.

As senior clergy, I have more and more realized the importance of a living, reflecting, open Bible reading in the midst of the parish life.

When I joined the World Council of Churches as an intern of the Public Information team in 2005, I often struggled to comprehend the “real” value of communicating themes related to ecumenism and peace.

At a meeting held in Paris, June 25-27, the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC) and the World Council of Churches (WCC) restored formal relations after a hiatus of more than two decades.

Creating art or poems is a way to reimagine the future, to build bridges and foster understanding, to develop empathy, to make friends, to express feelings, to build self-confidence, to learn how to be flexible and open-minded, to be exposed to different ideas and learn to listen to the views of others, to work collaboratively. These are all attributes that can help to promote peace.

There is a saying that “people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots”. There are undoubtedly many things we could aspire to learn when it comes to the possibilities of learning from history and the people that left a legacy of their work, setting foundations for the future in which is now our present.

On April 19, the evening of Good Friday in Atlanta, I was putting my son to bed when I received a phone call from my brother, Johan, in Sri Lanka. Our dad, Stanley John Sahabandhu, had passed away in his home in the Western Province.

Highschool students are searching their path through an exhibition titled "Peace takes a different way“. They stop in front of a mannequin representing a black woman dressed in white. They are reading on a roll-up about the struggle of Liberian women for peace.

Reflection by Erik Apelgårdh, first offered in 2016 at the Church of Reformation, Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the Holy Land Church in Beit Jala.

Looking back on a week of grief. A week full of sorrow, tears, loss and anger.
A week of grief that began with the air disaster in Ethiopia, when the life of our colleague Rev. Norman Tendis was taken too early. A question that surfaces: Why? Why this air crash, involving leading climate experts on their way to the UN climate meeting in Nairobi? So many dead and missing. So much grief.

About three weeks ago on my way to work two teen boys were walking ahead of me to school. But they stopped and made a detour. One pulled out a pack of cigarettes. They both lit up and began smoking. I kept walking and passed them by. As I sat at my desk, I felt convicted that I had behaved like the Priest and Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25 ff).

Let us talk about Abuse and Love. Growing up as a child, I saw my mother being physically, emotionally, mentally abused by my father. She was beaten, violated, abused – but not once did she ever mention this to anyone. One day, I asked my mother why she had to take all the pain, the violence and abuse she was going through in the hands of my father all to herself. Guess what… She said, my daughter listen, “your father hits me, he beats me, he hurts me because he loves me.”

‘We call upon all the churches we represent to denounce antisemitism, no matter what its origin, as absolutely irreconcilable with the profession and practice of the Christian faith. Antisemitism is sin against God and man.’ This unambiguous WCC declaration in 1948 has been regularly re-stated over the last 70 years. In the same spirit, the annual commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day is an opportunity to be welcomed. It focuses a widespread commitment not to forget the Holocaust of the Jewish people (while not excluding remembrance of other genocides) and to help prevent such atrocities in the future.

For decades I have been trying – together with social movements – to raise awareness in our churches and politics that we in the rich North, particularly in Germany, are living at the expense of people and nature in the global South, and that we offload the consequences to other parts of the earth. My focus is on the subject of justice. I believe that there cannot be solutions to the climate crisis if the issues of resource and social justice are not addressed. Peace in the world also heavily depends on this.

This Christmas Season I will have concrete places in my mind when I listen to the story of the shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem. I will think of the Bedouin community in Suyica, near Yatta, a Palestinian city in the West Bank. They live in tents and in caves because they are not allowed to build houses. Together with about 20 Methodists from around the globe representing the World Methodist Council, we visited them in October.

Without peace, there is no justice. Too often, we pursue justice at the expense of peace, and peace at the expense of justice. To conceive peace apart from justice is to compromise the hope that “justice and peace shall embrace” (Ps 85:10). When justice and peace are lacking, or set in opposition, we need to reform our ways. Let us rise, therefore, and work together for peace and justice.

I was not yet born in 1968, but I have heard the stories: How the World Council of Churches Assembly in Uppsala, Sweden changed the world church agenda and put focus on social justice and equality. To live and to practice the Gospel. To show the reality and embrace of the Incarnation.

50 years after the 1968 Uppsala Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Rev. Olle Alkholm, vice president of the Uniting Church in Sweden, shares a personal reflection, based on his only memory from that year.

The festival of lights called Deepavali (or Diwali) in India is deeply connected with the idea of hope, aspiration and abundance. Deepavali is the celebration of victory that is promised to a person who leads a morally responsible life. It is a victory of justice, represented by the oil lamps that cast away the darkness of oppression.