News and stories

What does it mean for the church to call for peace in a world where many forms of racism persist? This is one of the questions a World Council of Churches (WCC) conference on racism tried to answer.

The general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) has sent a message to the Middle East negotiators in Washington to stress the concerns of Palestinian Christians.

Politicians need to focus on the human face of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and not discard it in favour of their own political agendas, the head of the World Council of Churches has said in the Middle East.

The Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, condemns the killings of four Israeli settlers near Hebron in the West Bank on Tuesday and expresses his condolences to the affected families. He rejects any use of violence as a means to gain the much-desired and needed peace for this region.

An excerpt of information on the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation, that are particularly relevant for youth.

Military checkpoints are a way of life for Palestinians in Palestine and Israel. Each day tens of thousands of Palestinians move patiently through turnstiles and narrow caged walkways to go to work, school or home. It is a humiliating experience.

At a time when there are signs of hope emerging from the churches in the Middle East around the conflict in Palestine and Israel, a delegation led by WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit will be travelling to the region to emphasize the need for a “just peace”.

Churches’ attitudes and responses to racism today will come under scrutiny at a conference, organized by the World Council of Churches (WCC) in partnership with the United Church of Christ (UCC) and Dutch missionary and diaconal agency Kerk in Actie, in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, 26-29 August.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is sending an international ecumenical Living Letters delegation to visit the Indigenous Peoples in the Northern Territory of Australia from 12 -17 September 2010.

The International Ecumenical Peace Convocation (IEPC) in the Jamaican capital Kingston in May 2011 will be a testimony of solidarity for the culture of peace that churches are trying to build on the island, says the Rev. Dr Paul Gardner, the president of the Jamaica Council of Churches, one of the event's hosts.