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African church-backed torch marches toward COP27

A church-backed symbolic torch—amplifying calls for climate justice—is moving across African countries, on its way to Sharm El-Sheik, the Egyptian city, hosting the 6-18 November UN Climate Change Conference (COP27).

Journalists reflect on telling the stories of the WCC 11th Assembly

Dr Corina Meuhlstedt, a well-known German radio journalist, described what it was like to tell the stories of the World Council of Churches (WCC) 11th Assembly. The positive atmosphere was my biggest takeaway form the assembly,” she said. I felt that Christians of very different denominations, some who even live in countries in conflict, were able to overcome prejudice and hostility—at least for a certain time—by seeing Christ in the other.”

Dear future steward

One hundred twenty-seven young people from over 50 countries in all eight regions served as stewards at the World  Council of Churches (WCC) 11th Assembly providing essential assistance in all activities and areas as well as contributing energy and perspective to  our life together as an ecumenical fellowship. Two of the stewards assisting the WCC Communication team share their experience as a letter and diary to future stewards at the 12th assembly.

Promoting human dignity through art

“Affirming justice and human dignity”  was the theme of the fourth thematic plenary of the World Council of Churches(WCC) 11th assembly on 6 September. The presentation featured a wheelchair dance performance by Fadi El Halabi, a wheelchair user and Ms. Karen Abi Nader, an international artist. In the freestyle dance, Halabi effortlessly spinned around his wheelchair and,  with slow coordinated moves together with his dance partner, threw hands in the air symbolizing the joy that can only be felt when all exclusionary and disempowerment practices in church and society are addressed.

Uppsala 1968: The times, they were a’changing

By rights, it should have been Africa. The World Council of Churches’ (WCC) First Assembly had been held in Europe (Amsterdam), the second in North America (Evanston, USA), the third in Asia (New Delhi). Hopes were raised that Africa would be the next continent to host the council. But questions arose concerning acts of violence and military conflicts in Africa throughout the 1960s, from the Biafran region in Nigeria to Zanzibar and Eritrea, from Algeria to Mozambique and Rhodesia. And so the Fourth Assembly returned to the “safety” of Europe, to Uppsala in Sweden. In one of history’s ironies, Soviet tanks would roll into Prague one month after the assembly’s close.

Youth demand climate justice

“If you’re for climate justice, say ‘AMEN!’” was the chant as young people led a protest marching through the Brunnen exhibition zone at the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Karlsruhe, Germany on September 2, 2022.

Choose the power of love: Pre-Assemblies deliver powerful calls

Karlsruhe, a city built over 300 hundred years ago without walls, open to friends and guests —at a time where other cities still hid behind their fortifications —welcomed people from all over the world to four pre-assemblies that are bringing forward powerful calls to the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC).