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The World Council of Churches (WCC) and the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC) met formally on 25-27 June in Paris, under the theme “The normalization of hatred: challenges for Jews and Christians today”. This meeting took place at a time of significant challenges in public and religious life for many communities around the world. At the meeting Peter Prove, director of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, presented the WCC policies on antisemitism and the WCC’s work for human rights for all. The WCC News met with him after the meeting.

The International Council of Christians and Jews held its annual conference in Lund, Sweden on 30 June through 3 July with the theme: “Transformations Within and Between: How Does Our New Relationship Affect Christians and Jewish Self-Understandings?”
Approximately 160 participants representing many organizations, including the World Council of Churches, came from 23 nations. They began the conference in the Lutheran Cathedral of Lund with greetings from local religious and civic leaders.

Rev. Margarithe Veen, an ordained minister at the Protestant congregation of Achlum-Hitzum in the Netherlands, shared her year-long research findings with the World Council of Churches (WCC) on 1 July.

Conversations at the World Council of Churches (WCC) exhibition booth at the Kirchentag showed there is a growing interest in ecumenical movement among German churches. The topics of a particularly high interest were the Thursdays in Black campaign and studies at the Ecumenical institute in Bossey.

It is confirmation season in Greenland. In churches across the country, bench rows are decorated with flowers and candles along the aisle. Joy is in the air and it is time for a vast majority of 14-year-olds to have their Christian baptism confirmed.

The World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) was featured in the DW Global Media Forum held 27-28 May in Bonn, Germany. More than 2,000 media professionals, policymakers, and movers from politics and civil society, culture and education, business and science – representing 140 countries – attended the conference.

Nowadays, any cause can be effectively promoted in a blink of an eye, with a click on a button. At virtually no cost, messages travel fast around the globe through social media and other digital platforms. For good and bad, but mostly for good. Because without it, grassroots movements, such as the Arab Spring, which started in Tunisia in 2010 and ended up toppling several governments, would have had a much harder time rallying support and getting their message across to key audiences.

Racism is a curse that continues to haunt the global community, with new forms constantly emerging. This curse brings us to the realisation that no country is free from racism and we cannot afford any attitude of pretence or denial that no further action is needed to focus on racial justice in order to re-establish human dignity and equal human rights on a global scale.

A new campaign page has been launched for individuals and organizations to support the 2020 Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP), the largest and longest-running research and advocacy initiative on gender equality in the world’s news media.

As of 25 April 2019, the WCC Annual Review 2018 is available for download online. The annual review records many of the WCC’s activities undertaken in 2018 and continuing into 2019.

The Europe region of the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) elected a new Regional Executive Committee during its once-every-four-years assembly, held as part of as joint seminar organised with the Conference of European Churches (CEC) from 10-12 April in Helsinki and Stockholm.

An adage that some people ignore these days is that mobility has shaped each human society, and a recent meeting of the Maison Internationale des Associations in Geneva focused on this.

Many colours and flavours of humanity assembled on 7 April for a lively day of discussions and exchanges about human mobility where most views were celebrating the social phenomenon at an event titled “Tout d’ailleurs, tous d’ici” (All from elsewhere, all from here).

An interreligious jury at the Festival Visions du Réel in Nyon, Switzerland, awarded a prize to the film “When the Persimmons Grew,” the story of a mother who, during the persimmon harvest, philosophizes with her son about the fruits of life. The Azerbaijani director interweaves linear time with the present, capturing the joys of everyday life.

Unity, justice and peace – three values held together in love – are the focus of the WCC Staff Planning Days on 9-12 April. Led by WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, the gathering maps the WCC’s critical contributions in a world full of challenges.

They came from governments, the United Nations, civil society, churches and other faith-based organizations to discuss the impact of Cyclone Idai that has wreaked death, havoc and destruction on Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe in recent weeks.

(LWF Communication) – An ecumenical prayer service in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, United States, marked the opening of a four-day consultation of five Christian World Communions discussing the historic importance of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ) and its impact on the search for full, visible unity of the church.

On 15 March, a group of Ecumenical accompaniers from the WCC were invited to share Shabbat dinner with the Kol HaNeshama congregation in Jerusalem.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is inviting the public, media, and all people of goodwill to join in a Midday Prayer on 20 March. Prayers will focus on grieving family, friends and colleagues who lost loved ones from UN agencies, the WCC and other organizations who perished in the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crash on 10 March.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is inviting the public, media, and all people of goodwill to join in a Midday Prayer on 20 March. Prayers will focus on grieving family, friends and colleagues who lost loved ones from UN agencies, the WCC and other organizations who perished in the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crash on 10 March.

Behind Bali’s luxury hotels, sandy beaches and lush landscapes pampering tourists from all around the world, one finds a heartbreaking poverty, and its most vulnerable victims are children.