Displaying 121 - 140 of 597

Interfaith panel addresses debt cancellation and reparations

A panel of experts of different faiths spoke on debt cancellation and reparations as tools for promoting justice, sustainability and life-affirming economies in the third 2020 Ecumenical School on Governance, Economics and Management public webinar held on 2 October.

Tax justice can renew biblical covenants

Tax justice, including reforming the current tax systems, enacting jubilee, and paying reparations, was the focus of the second 2020 Ecumenical School on Governance, Economics and Management public webinar held on 14 September.

Online panel will explore tax reform from faith-rooted perspective

A public online panel discussion—“In a Time of Pandemic, Inequality, and Climate Change: Zacchaeus Tax and Jubilee Now!”—will explore how taxation, reparations, and debt cancellation could contribute to shaping an Economy of Life in a world marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, widening socio-economic inequalities, and a growing climate emergency.

WCC, WCRC, LWF, CWM letter to G20 finance ministers (July 2020)

The World Council of Churches (WCC), World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC), Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and Council for World Mission (CWM), have followed with profound concern how the COVID-19 pandemic and the related economic crisis have continued to destroy lives and livelihood around the world. To date this has resulted in more than half a million deaths, massive unemployment, increase of debts, poverty, and inequality in many parts of the world.

General Secretary

In Uganda, young people represent “wealth of courage, agency and ideas”

During a ceremony recognizing how young people in Uganda are true “agents of change” in health and healing, Rev. Pauline Njiru, eastern Africa regional coordinator for the World Council of Churches Ecumenical HIV & AIDS Initiatives and Advocacy programme, said young people are bringing a fresh drive for justice in many local communities.

“Who will pay the recovery?” – international report calls for tax justice under COVID-19

The global pandemic has led to major structural increases in public expenditures to support health, incomes and employment. The question of who will ultimately foot the bill will need to be answered. A report launched on 15 June by the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation alerts that the economic burden must not fall disproportionately on disadvantaged groups and countries.

“Unto the Churches of Christ Everywhere,” Encyclical of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, 1920

One of the foundational moments in the modern ecumenical movement is an encyclical letter issued 100 years ago by the Ecumenical Patriarchate on 1 January 1920. As its opening words state, it was addressed “Unto the Churches of Christ everywhere” and sent as a letter to the leaders of key Christian churches. Its first words are an appeal to “Love one another earnestly from the heart,” quoting from 1 Peter 1:22.

Peace on the Korean Peninsula – NOW!

“We pray – Peace now – End the War!” This is the motto for the “Light of Peace” Prayer Campaign for the Korean Peninsula. “Peace now!” Now we are caught in the global coronavirus pandemic. The airtime in TV and radio is occupied by news related to the spread of the virus with many bad consequences for health and wealth of humankind. In this crisis we tend to forget other urgent needs. One of them is the call for peace for the Korean Peninsula.

Tax justice in a time of COVID-19 crisis

When the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, was recently admitted to hospital with COVID-19, spending a few days in intensive care, a number of British politicians and journalists talked about how the virus was the great leveller. Everyone from street cleaners to world leaders could get the disease; no-one was immune, therefore, we must all follow the same social distancing guidelines. But as Iñigo Aymar of Oxfam has pointed out, COVID-19 is not so much the great leveller, but the great revealer.

In times of global crisis, time to formulate the narrative of the way out

In just a couple of weeks an invisible virus got the world economy on its knees and made 2020 the year of postponement. Not only concerts and conferences, sports and theaters have been suspended or postponed. Even pivotal UN meetings have been postponed and among them the UNFCCC COP 26 in Glasgow. A meeting that should have at its best ramped up the ambitions to cut the world’s emissions of greenhouse gases. Incredible amounts of money have been thrown in by different governments of the world to keep the economy from a total collapse. And no one seems to be against it.

Calling for an Economy of Life in a Time of Pandemic

In a joint message released on 15 May 2020, the World Council of Churches, World Communion of Reformed Churches, Lutheran World Federation, and Council for World Mission underlined that cooperation and solidarity within and across countries, embodied in networks of faith communities, civil society, and social movements as well as fresh systems of global governance rooted in justice, care, and sustainability are needed in response to the global health crisis of the Covid‐19 pandemic and the longer‐standing economic and ecological emergency.

WCC Programmes

Calling for an Economy of Life in a Time of Pandemic - a Joint Message from the WCC, WCRC, LWF, and CWM

The current Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted every aspect of our lives in a world already plagued with immense human suffering. In response, our organizations – the World Council of Churches (WCC), the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC), the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), and the Council for World Mission (CWM) – through the joint New International Financial and Economic Architecture (NIFEA) initiative convened an e-conference under the theme, “Economy of Life in a time of Pandemic”, on 17 and 24 April 2020.

Ecumenical movement

Llamado a una economía de la vida en tiempos de pandemia

La actual pandemia de la Covid-19 ha perturbado todos los aspectos de nuestras vidas en un mundo ya plagado de un inmenso sufrimiento humano. En respuesta a esta situación, nuestras organizaciones (el Consejo Mundial de Iglesias (CMI), la Comunión Mundial de Iglesias Reformadas (CMIR), la Federación Luterana Mundial (FLM) y el Consejo de Misión Mundial (CMM)) convocaron una conferencia electrónica bajo el tema “Economía de la vida en tiempos de pandemia” los días 17 y 24 de abril de 2020, mediante la iniciativa conjunta de Nueva Arquitectura Financiera y Económica Internacional (NIFEA, por su sigla en inglés).

Ecumenical movement