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Major global faith-based organizations are responding to the G7 meeting in Hiroshima by expressing dismay that heads of state have failed to take steps to phase out fossil fuels and fund climate-related loss and damage. The groups are renewing their calls for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.  

A team from the Church of Westphalia visited the World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Institute at Bossey from 27 September to 1 October, exploring a global view of ecumenism by learning about the WCC as a global ecumenical organisation.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is mourning the passing away of Hendrew Lusey-Gekawaku on 13 October 2020. He was a registered nurse, public health practitioner and ecumenist who contributed enormously to ecumenical and interfaith HIV and AIDS responses.

“It is with great sadness that the World Council of Churches received news about the passing away of Rev. Dr Micheline Kamba Kasongo, an outstanding theologian and ecumenist who contributed enormously to many areas in the ecumenical movement,” said Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca, interim general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC).

As the COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread loss and hardship, people across the world have drawn closer to the World Council of Churches (WCC), showing increased interest in many channels of communication.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) Executive Committee met from 20-26 November at the Bossey Ecumenical Institute, to approve the 2020 programme plans and budget, follow up and decide on a variety of assembly matters, discuss world affairs and issue seven statements in response to current situations. The Executive Committee also discerned the way forward for the WCC’s Youth Communication Strategy.

“What can one person do” can often sound like a lament about powerlessness.

For Thursdays in Black, though, one person can build a movement.

David Emmanuel Goatley, Faculty Director of the Office of Black Church Studies at Duke University Divinity School in North Carolina, USA, learned about Thursdays in Black through his involvement with the World Council of Churches’ Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace. He has now launched the campaign through the Office at Duke University.

Social media was awash with messages of love on Valentine’s Day, but from Thursdays in Black supporters, the flowers came with strong messages that love is not violent.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) Executive Committee, meeting this week in Uppsala, Sweden, heard the report of WCC Central Committee moderator Dr Agnes Abuom and WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit.

Dr Erlinda N. Senturias, from the Philippines, gives thanks that WCC has created safe spaces for the churches to talk about HIV and AIDS. She asks that the ecumenical movement continue to be a beacon of support for this ongoing journey of health and healing.

Interview with pastor Martin Robra on the visit of Pope Francis to the World Council of Churches by Antonio Spadaro, SJ

Christianity is growing faster in Africa than anywhere else in the world says Rev. Fr Dr Lawrence Iwuamadi, Professor of Ecumenical Biblical Hermeneutics at the Ecumenical Institute, Bossey. He was the convener of a discussion on the Anthology of African Christianity held by the WCC on 15 February with a panel of experts at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva.

“Dignity, Freedom, and Grace: Christian Perspectives on HIV, AIDS and Human Rights,” a book published earlier this year by the WCC, will be among reports discussed at a 20 September event with the theme “Keeping the Faith in Development: Gender, Religions & Heath.”

The 21st International AIDS Conference, which concluded July 22, had its normal dose of science speak, with seminars and workshops ranging from new vaccine trials to the testing of a vaginal ring that appears to dramatically lower the risk of HIV infection in women.

Leaders and other representatives of Anglican churches throughout the world have gathered from 8 through 19 April for the 16th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in Lusaka, Zambia. Participants are celebrating good news of faithful ministries within the communion, while exploring tensions among its provinces, especially over issues of sexual ethics on which Christians disagree.

Meeting from 17 to 24 June, the newly reconstituted Commission on Faith and Order of the WCC has begun to define its principal trajectories for ecumenical study and common activity from 2015 until the next WCC Assembly in 2020.

Dr Fulata Mbano-Moyo, the WCC programme executive for Women in Church and Society, called on the movement of Christian students to reclaim its radical transforming nature towards a “pilgrimage of gender justice”.

An emphasis on establishing societies that offer opportunities for fulfillment and development to all was endorsed by participants in a meeting at Bogota, Colombia. Such societies, they said, would especially benefit people with disabilities in Latin America, a region where prevalence of disability is high, as reported by the Economic Commission for Latin America.