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In a sermon entitled “Being church today in a world in crisis,” offered at the Presbyterian Reformed Church of Cuba on 17 December, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay shared thoughts of hope and transformation.

In the years since it was founded in 2016, the International Centre for Inter-Faith Peace and Harmony in Kaduna, Nigeria has been building a cadre of peacemakers who are witnesses to inter-religious peace and harmony. It also continues to serve as a physical symbol helping Muslims and Christians work together more effectively.

The brutal killing of Joao Alberto Silveira Freitas, 40, a black man, at the hands of two white security guards outside a supermarket in Porto Alegre, Brazil, on 19 November, the eve of National Black Consciousness Day, has sparked outrage across the country. World Council of Churches (WCC) member churches raised their voices to condemn the killing and to express deep concern regarding systemic racial injustice in Brazil.

Each year students from all over the world arrive at Bossey near Geneva for a three-month language training course to pave their way for ecumenical studies that follow on straight after. “The title captures the goal of the course,” says Father Lawrence Iwuamadi, the Nigerian priest who studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and is academic dean of the Ecumenical Institute.

In writing a story for the 70th anniversary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), Elias Crisóstomo Abramides of Argentina, from the Ecumenical Patriarchate, is writing the story of his life. His service at the WCC opened for him the gate to meeting and loving “the very good Creation of God”: love, respect and admiration for the life of his neighbours and for all creation.

The primate of The Church of the Lord, Aladura, Worldwide, an African initiated church founded in 1925 talks with pride about how the founder had a calling from God to have women serving with men in pastoral work. Primate Rev. Dr Rufus Okikiolaolu Ositelu, metropolitan archbishop of the church visited Geneva and the WCC on 29-30 January.

When more than 100 religious leaders and other actors from around the world gathered at the UN in Vienna in mid-February, it was a manifestation of unity between religious and non-religious organizations, and a genuine commitment to cooperate in dealing with hate speech and incitement to violence that could lead to atrocity crimes.

In many ways, the World Council of Churches (WCC) pilgrimage of justice and peace hinges on protecting, advocating, and educating people about human rights. In Nigeria, a series of workshops in November promoted human rights across a number of WCC programme areas, including the Churches’ Commitments to Children, preventing gender-based violence, and engaging with the United Nations human rights system.

Friday evening when the leaders of the G20 states will be meeting in Hamburg and discussing global economic, social, environmental and political issues, the churches in Germany are inviting people in Germany and all over the world to a common peace prayer.

With the aim of monitoring how the Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace is unfolding and to develop suggestions for its various initiatives and activities, with a special focus on the Africa region in 2017, the World Council of Churches (WCC) convened a meeting of the reference group of the pilgrimage in Nigeria from 20-27 February.

Nigeria Christians and Muslims gathered on 19 August to open the International Centre for Inter-Faith Peace and Harmony (ICIPH). The centre is located in Kaduna, where more than 20,000 people have died in various conflicts over the last three decades. Amid a growing number of interfaith initiatives in Nigeria, the new centre has a unique goal: to systematically document interfaith relations to inform national and international policy-making.

Students of communication and theology will address questions of media and globalization and then explore how these relate to the theme of religion in mass media, as part of a global summer school held from 23 to 31 July in Jamaica.

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.

The African continent bears witness to the tragic consequences of the manipulation of religion to incite violence. Yet it is also the home of untold instances of the power of religious leaders and actors to exert a positive influence, said panellists at an international meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, today.

Interview with the WCC general secretary, who is currently in Brasilia, about violence committed in the name of religion, human rights and climate justice in Brazil.

“From the very beginning, women in the ecumenical movement have been raising the question of who is missing around the table and why,” said Dr Fulata Mbano-Moyo, speaking at the Latin American Congress on Gender and Religion.

Outcomes, disappointments, as well as encouraging signs from the United Nations Climate Change Conference and the Peoples Summit held late last year in Lima, Peru, were discussed at length by representatives of faith communities.