The World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Water Network and its partner organizations hosted a hybrid side event, “Faith Community is a ‘Blue Community,” on 22 March in conjunction with the UN Water Conference in New York City.Prof. Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, UN Special Rapporteur, human right to water, opened the event with a video message on how this is the first time in almost 50 years that the United Nations has convened a global event to reflect on the global water crisis—a crisis that finds 2 billion people without access to clean water, and 4 billion without access to adequate sanitation.
A new publication from WCC, “Coexistence: Peace, Nature, Poverty, Terrorism, Values (Religious Perspectives)” by Anastasios, Archbishop of Tirana, Durrës, and All Albania, is now available in hard copy and as an eBook.
Amid accelerating climate catastrophe, the International Partnership on Religion and Sustainable Development (PaRD) forms a grand ambition for wider collaboration to overcome challenges to sustainable and inclusive development.
Recently during the PJP harvest gathering meeting of WCC, at a workshop on revisiting the Seven Weeks for Water – Lenten campaign of the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Water Network, Dr Agnes Abuom was asked to reflect on the linkage between the WCC’s water justice campaign and the WCC’s overarching theme of Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace? Having attended several PJP meetings and Lenten campaigns herself, she responded in a pre-recorded video message. The following is the transcript of her video message.
Students sat entranced as the theologian recounted that after serving in the Hitler Youth and the German Army as a “patriot” in World War II, he turned his back on nationalism and the horrors of that conflict.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) hosted a Sikh-Christian dialogue on 5 July with the theme “Pursuing Peace in a Pluralistic World” to commemorate the 550th birth Anniversary of Guru Nanak, the first guru of the Sikhs.
Dinesh Suna, coordinator of the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Water Network, spoke at the G20 Interfaith Forum, held 7-9 June in Tokyo. This year’s theme was “Peace, People, Planet: Pathways Forward.” About 2,000 participants attend the gathering, which precedes the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan. The interfaith forum submitted recommendations for G20 leaders.
At a conference with the theme “Promoting Peace Together” held in Geneva on 21 May, religious leaders focused on two historic documents related to peace-making. The first, “Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together,” was jointly signed by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar in Abu Dhabi in February. The second, “Education for Peace in a Multi-Religious World: A Christian Perspective,” jointly prepared by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the World Council of Churches (WCC), was officially launched at the conference.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) has helped lead the formation of the first-ever working group on water and climate action in the International Partnership on Religion and Sustainable Development (PaRD).
“It is not God’s will that the earth is destroyed. We the creatures, we who are supposed to be stewards of creation, are unjustly self-destructive”, read the sermon of the Rt. Rev. Arnold C. Temple, president of the All Africa Conference of Churches, at the opening service of World Council of Churches (WCC) Lenten Campaign “Seven Weeks for Water”, on 5 March, in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
More than 1100 religious studies specialists, theologians, ecumenists and other scholars are meeting in the Italian city of Bologna for the 2019 European Academy of Religion, a five-day event with more than 320 different sessions.
The third reflection of the “Seven Weeks for Water 2019” of World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Water Network is by Grace Ji-Sun Kim, an ordained minister of PC (USA). She received her PhD from the University of Toronto and works as an Associate Professor of Theology at Earlham School of Religion. She is a prolific writer and the author or editor of 16 books including, Making Peace with the Earth. Kim is part of the World Council of Churches working group on climate change. In this reflection, she recollects her early days in Korea and how she looked at the water then and now, as an eco-feminist theologian. She further reflects on the promise of God "I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground…" and contrasts it with today's consumeristic lifestyle, which is polluting our water bodies and denying millions from enjoying this life-giving gift of God – Water!
Theology can provide solutions for the sustainability issues that challenge the common home of humanity, according to the contributors to the latest issue of The Ecumenical Review, the quarterly journal of the World Council of Churches (WCC).
Christian, Jewish and Muslim students who attended the World Council of Churches (WCC) 2018 Interreligious Summer School at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey said that learning to break down prejudices about the other was a lasting impression from the six-week course.
World Council of Churches (WCC) deputy general secretary Isabel Apawo Phiri offered the annual Steve de Gruchy Memorial Lecture on 24 April in Cape Town, South Africa.
Under the title, “Walking Together, Serving Justice and Peace,” the latest issue of The Ecumenical Review, the quarterly journal of the WCC, commemorates the WCC’s 70th anniversary by publishing an article, address, or book chapter by each of the WCC's seven general secretaries since 1948.
It is time to revitalize the Asian ecumenical movement to respond to contemporary realities in Asia, according to Mathews George Chunakara, general secretary of the Christian Conference of Asia, in the article that opens the latest issue of The Ecumenical Review, the quarterly journal of the WCC.
Marking the end of Ramadan, or Eid al Fitr, Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) offered greetings to the worldwide Muslim community.
As Pope Francis marks the fourth anniversary of his election, the latest issue of The Ecumenical Review, the quarterly journal of the WCC, opens with an article discussing the ecumenical gestures that have marked his pontificate, one of the most striking being his presence at the joint Catholic–Lutheran Reformation commemoration in Lund in 2016.
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.
