News and stories

+ Ecumenical leaders discuss future of ecumenism + WCC hosts Indigenous leaders to UN caucus + Churches to celebrate International Day of Prayer for Peace + WCC general secretary to visit churches in Canada

Concerned about the growing plight of children in many parts of Asia, church leaders will gather in Colombo, Sri Lanka from 28-31 August and from 1-4 September in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to evolve a strategy for mobilising churches to take a more active role in overcoming violence against children in both local and national contexts in Asia.

"Religious legitimization of violence," affirmed A. Rashied Omar, an imam from South Africa, "does not occur in a socio-historical vacuum, but within concrete human settings in which power dynamics are paramount". And this holds true despite the fact that "the hegemonic discourse of religion and violence largely ignores the issue of power".

"Peace is coming. We will be able to go back home." This hope was voiced again and again by the internally displaced women we visited in camps and church communities in Khartoum and nearby Medani. It is this voice of hope that sustains the church and the people of Sudan as they wait eagerly for lasting peace.

"Your mere presence in Malaysia is a powerful statement against (…) the rhetoric of hate and distrust that is so prevalent in the world today," Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Bin Haji Ahmad Badawi today told over a hundred church representatives from all over the world gathered in Kuala Lumpur.

Middle Eastern church leaders have condemned attacks on Iraqi churches and called for solidarity following bombings at churches yesterday.

The world's most representative theological forum for Christian unity - the World Council of Churches' (WCC) commission on Faith and Order - will meet in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from 28 July to 6 August, 2004. As the commission's first meeting in the 21st century, this will also be the first time it will gather in a Muslim-majority country.

"Although there is no human practice so abominable or so widely condemned, physical and mental torture and other forms of cruel and inhuman treatment are now on the increase and are applied systematically in many countries, to the extent that practically no nation can claim to be free of them..."

Dr Bernice Powell Jackson, the executive minister of the Justice and Witness ministries of the United Church of Christ in the USA, has been elected as World Council of Churches (WCC) president from North America, joining seven co-presidents from other regions. Powell Jackson replaces Rev. Kathryn Bannister of the United Methodist Church.

The general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia will visit Germany from 28 June to 2 July. This is Kobia’s first official visit to Germany since taking office in January 2004.