Churches' attitudes and responses to racism today will come under scrutiny at a conference, organized by the World Council of Churches (WCC) in partnership with the United Church of Christ (UCC) and Dutch missionary and diaconal agency Kerk in Actie , in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, 26-29 August.
As the United Nations has made a small but significant step forward towards declaring caste-based discrimination a human rights violation, Indian Christian leaders have called on the churches to confess that the caste system is still being practised also within them.
"We believe that this is a moment where we are invited by God to commit ourselves to be instruments of change in the church and the wider society," participants in an international conference on "Churches against Racism" have said, 17 June. The message was read in the presence of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands during a closing worship service.
The Dutch queen will be the guest of honour at a conference seeking to take on the legacy of the World Council of Churches' (WCC) historic anti-racism efforts.
Two global church organizations have congratulated the Durban Review Conference on the adoption of its outcome document, while regretting that the latter makes no mention of the plight of hundreds of millions of people affected by caste-based discrimination.
Recounting stories such as the alleged forced poisoning of a young couple, speakers at the Global Ecumenical Conference on Justice for Dalits which opened in Bangkok, Thailand, on 21 March gave a face to the 3,500-year-old system of caste-based discrimination, detailing practices many would consider unthinkable in the 21st century.
"Â an extraordinary woman who lived an extraordinary life during an extraordinary time" is how World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary, Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, describes Coretta Scott King in a tribute sent today to member churches in the USA. The widow of the US civil rights leader Martin Luther King, died yesterday, 31 January, at the age of 78.