A collection of documents and publications from the World Council of Churches (WCC) is now available through its longstanding partner organization Globethics.net. The WCC collection, updated weekly, reflects a growing and longstanding electronic bridge between the organizations’ websites.

For many years, the Globethics.net Library has hosted a variety of collections on behalf of the WCC, an active member of the Globethics.net Consortium on Ethics in Higher Education, as well as co-founder of the former Global Digital Library on Theology and Ecumenism (GlobeTheoLib).

The institutional “World Council of Churches collection” has recently been updated with new content collected from its website, including documents and publications published at www.oikoumene.org/resources. Thanks to an electronic bridge between the two sites, new resources are automatically added to the collection on a weekly basis.
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ACSC will “resource the whole Anglican Communion for courageous and confident spiritual leadership in issues involving science.” A new Anglican Communion Science Commission (ACSC) is being formed to “resource the whole Anglican Communion for courageous and confident spiritual leadership in issues involving science.” The ACSC will be co-chaired by the Archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba; and the Bishop of Oxford, Stephen Croft. The ACSC will formally launch at the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England, in July and August next year; and will hold its first conference shortly afterwards.

Scientists, theologians, and bishops from around the globe are being invited by the Anglican Communion’s Secretary General, Dr Josiah Idowu-Fearon, to serve as Commissioners. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has asked Anglican Communion Primates to nominate a Bishop from their Church to serve as provincial representatives at conferences of the Commission. Science will be a significant feature at the 2022 Lambeth Conference. Today, organisers have posted a series of videos, exploring the relationship between science and faith, on the Lambeth Conference website.
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A webinar on how churches make moral decisions—and what causes divisions—brought a lively discussion attended online by more than 100 people on 29 April.

Basing their remarks on a World Council of Churches Faith and Order Commission publication, “Churches and Moral Discernment. Volume 1: Learning from Traditions,” the speakers shared insights from very different church perspectives.

As the foreword of the publication says, “The hope is that necessary prerequisites are fulfilled, allowing for constructive conversations within traditions. This will prevent divisions over moral issues and provide solid ground to engage in fruitful ecumenical dialogues that appreciate and attribute appropriate relevance to moral issues.”
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At the end of its biannual meeting, the World Council of Churches Commission on Faith and Order, in February, reported from its three study groups, which continue to look to future activities and dialogue with a sense of hope.

The first study group is working on a plan for a World Conference on Faith and Order in 2025. The last such conference organized by Faith and Order was in Compostela, Spain in 1993. In the proposal, the study group reflected on purpose, theme, format, partners, promotion and finances of a conference.

The study group on ecclesiology announced the publication of 78 responses to The Church: Towards a Common Vision. To address the divisive topics coming from the responses, a volume of 16 key theme papers written by the commissioners will be published ahead of the WCC 11th Assembly in 2022.

The Faith and Order Commission also mapped a path toward enlarging its work in order to better reflect the challenges raised by independent, evangelical and pentecostal traditions to the search for visible unity.
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A 9 March webinar – the third in a series of seven on bilateral dialogues – will focus on “Anglican-Orthodox Dialogue: History, Results, Reception” as well as the Canterbury Statement “Stewards of Creation: A Hope-Filled Ecology,” a statement on ecology jointly published by the Anglican Communion and the Orthodox Churches in October 2020.

Presentations will be offered by the two co-chairman of the International Commission for Anglican–Orthodox Theological Dialogue.
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The World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission on Faith and Order published two new volumes that collect responses received to The Church: Towards a Common Vision between 2013 and 2020.

The responses address the church’s mission, unity, and its being in the trinitarian life of God in order to encourage and advance the churches’ growth in communion with each other in apostolic faith, sacramental life, mission, and ministry for the sake of God’s world.
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The World Council of Churches (WCC) will host a webinar on 18 February from 14:00-15:30 (GMT+1) entitled “Common witness on environmental justice and religious pluralism” that will explore two recent papers released by the WCC Commission on Faith and Order.

The two publications are “Cultivate and Care: An Ecumenical Theology of Justice for and within Creation” and “Love and Witness: Proclaiming the Peace of the Lord Jesus Christ in a Religiously Plural World.”
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In a world crying out for justice and peace, the theme of the 2022 assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC), “Christ’s love moves the world to reconciliation and unity,” speaks of hope for a future in which resources are shared, inequalities are addressed and all can enjoy dignity, according to a new publication reflecting on the assembly theme.

The result of the work of an international group drawn from different regions and confessional traditions, the text is intended as a resource for churches and Christians worldwide in advance of the WCC’s 11th Assembly, to take place in Karlsruhe, Germany, from 31 August to 8 September 2022.

The assembly, according to the text, is an opportunity to find inspiration in the love of God, the Holy Trinity; a love that has been revealed in Christ; and that, through the power of the Holy Spirit, is moving in and through all humankind and all creation.
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After decades of nipping around the edges of the issues of systemic racism, the Commissioners of the 43rd General Council voted to declare the denomination to become an anti-racist church on Saturday, October 24, 2020. “This doesn’t mean we have achieved this goal,” explains the Moderator, the Right Rev. Richard Bott, “but we are taking a stand and saying we are publicly committed to eliminating systemic racism from our practices and policies.”

One of the last actions of outgoing General Secretary Nora Sanders was to create a new Anti-Racism and Equity Officer position in the General Council Office. After an extensive search process, we are pleased to announce that the successful candidate is Adele Halliday, who has already been deeply engaged in related work within the Church in Mission Unit and has worked with the United Church since 2004.
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