Health and Healing

The WCC’s health and healing programme facilitates networking and dialogue to promote health and healing for all people, to meet continuing and new health challenges worldwide.

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The WCC’s Health and Healing programme facilitates networking and dialogue to promote health and healing for all people, and it leads implementation of the WCC’s ecumenical global health strategy to meet continuing and new health challenges worldwide.

Health is more than physical and mental well-being, and healing is not primarily medical. Health and healing were a central feature of Jesus’ ministry and of his call to his followers, a reason why the church has been engaged in health services for centuries.

By stimulating dialogue among faith-based networks and within civil society, the WCC contributes to reflection on the theological basis of medical mission as well as to the development of new concepts of Christian health care.

The WCC's relationship with the World Health Organization and other international organizations, such as UNICEF and UNAIDS, allows it to facilitate networking and advocacy on behalf of church-related health networks.

The WCC’s networking and advocacy support the global health agenda, which  has changed greatly over the years. In addition to the Sustainable Development Goal 3 on good health and well-being, health is inherent in each of the 17 goals. Universal health coverage, with the virtual elimination of HIV, is an urgent global public health agenda. Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, like Ebola and Dengue, are still a concern. Antimicrobial resistance, neglected tropical diseases and non-communicable diseases, including lifestyle diseases, have now come to the fore with a growing global impact.

With these continuing and new global challenges, the WCC believes that it is time again for the church to reaffirm the role it has played over the centuries in global health, and consolidate all efforts towards health and healing for all.

More back issues of the Contact magazine are available here.

Publication
Red book cover with candles on a black background symbolising a journey

Good News about HIV Treatment, Cure, and Healing

Conversations between Faith Leaders and Communities in Nigeria
Gracia Violeta Ross
Wushishi Yusuf
Yusuf Saidu Mohammed

A Discussion Document 

HIV treatment is very effective and tolerable nowadays. However, some faith leaders, out of misinformation, continue spreading messages of exclusive healing by faith, asking people living with HIV to abandon their medications as proof of their faith in God.

In Good News about HIV Treatment, Cure, and Healing, the initiators of the conversations and the discussants analyzed the concepts of treatment, cure, and healing in HIV, using principles of Christian and Muslim theologies, and concluded that faith communities have the mandate to heal. They discussed the six recent six cases of people with HIV who have been declared cured, which sparks hope for a definitive cure for all. Meanwhile, faith communities must support people living with HIV in adhering to their treatment. Medications and treatments are part of the healing touch of God, who is the ultimate source of healing.

10 October 2024
Publication
A photo of a number of hands intertwined on a red background, symbolizing care for each other

Q&A Mpox and the Role of Faith Communities

This simple factsheet provides background about the Mpox zoonotic disease,: what it is, how it is transmitted, signs and symptoms, vaccines and treatment, and, most importantly, the role of faith communities in responding to the disease.

10 October 2024
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Ecumenical HIV and AIDS Initiatives and Advocacy

Promoting HIV competence among churches and theological institutions, addressing the root causes of the pandemic.

Learn more about WCC-EHAIA
Contact magazine
Go to the back issues of WCC's Contact magazine
Contact special series

Contact magazine special series, 2018

SPECIAL SERIES NUMBER 5, OCTOBER 2018
Health-Promoting Churches: Reflections on Health and Healing for Churches on Commemorative World Health Days

This booklet includes 15 reflections on international commemorative health days from Dr Mwai Makoka WCC Programme Executive for Health and Healing, who emphasises that he is not a theologian, but “ a lay Christian who is a medical professional and keen to promote health and healing from a Christian perspective.

Health-Promoting Churches
Faith on the Fast Track HIV Campaign

Aimed to accelerate and intensify actions by faith communities for a world without new HIV infections; zero stigma and discrimination; zero AIDS-related deaths; and where the human rights and dignity of all are upheld.

Learn more about WCC's HIV Campaign
Africa Christian Health Associations Platform
AFRICACHAP.ORG

Dr Mwai Makoka, Programme Executive

Health and Healing Programme

email: [email protected]

phone: +41 71 691 62 54