WCC Pilgrimage Blog

Prayer Service for Peace on the eve of ICAN’s Nobel Peace Prize

Jonathan Frerichs

Trinity Church in Oslo is a great round space of silence and light. It’s a place that invites those who enter to think about peace. Campaigners of different faiths and traditions, in the city to celebrate the Nobel Peace Prize for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, quietly fill the pews. Then a grand organ sounds—this house of prayer welcomes guests with its own voice.

Tags: Nuclear arms control, PilgrInspire, transformed, spiritual life, WhereWillYouGo

A witness for peace with ICAN Nobel Prize

Jonathan Frerichs

First event in the Nobel Peace Prize weekend? A seminar at the Norwegian Red Cross on what a nuclear weapon could do to Oslo. The dark winter clouds hanging over the city are a backdrop for careful assessments of nuclear disasters and the inadequacy of a feasible response. But partners and supporters of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), this year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, fill the room. A sense of excitement and shared resolve is evident. The same is true among ICAN partners arriving in Oslo and the wide civil society network including churches gathering on-line around the world to celebrate the collaboration and commitment that led to the Nobel Prize.

Tags: Nuclear arms control, WhyPilgrimage, FellowPilgrims, JusticeAndPeace

Allez, les Pilgrims! The power of a team

Susan Kim

One of my favorite activities - running - tends to be thought of as a solitary endeavor. And it’s true: I rarely have the opportunity to run on a team. On 2 December I had the privilege of running on a team: the World Council of Churches “Pilgrims for Justice and Peace.”

Tags: PilgrimsOnTheMove, FellowPilgrims

Let the children come to me

Frederique Seidel

The children were brought to Jesus in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray. They were brought with hearts filled with hope and confidence. “Do not stop them” Jesus said. Today, on World Children’s Day, let us think about the 28 million refugee children who are driven from their homes by conflict, migrating in the hope of finding a safer life.

Tags: human rights, WhereWillYouGo, Children's rights, spiritual life

Vatican conference and ecumenical echoes on nuclear arms and human development

Jonathan Frerichs

A ground-breaking pontifical critique of nuclear weapons affirms the new treaty to ban nuclear weapons. By linking possession and use, Pope Francis is offering a new standard for Catholic debate over nuclear weapons. By offering it now, the pope is making a moral affirmation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons adopted at the United Nations in July. The new treaty--which bans the possession, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons--is cited in this year’s Nobel Peace Prize award to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). The World Council of Churches is a member of ICAN and shares the same moral and spiritual critique of nuclear armaments.

Tags: Nuclear arms control, just community of women and men, Economy of life for all, JusticeAndPeace

Solidarity with peaceful eco-resistance movements

Pamela Brubaker

“We are part of a struggle in defense of water, life, and mother earth,” people from the Peaceful Resistance Movement of La Puya told us. La Puya is a campsite at the entrance of the El Tambor gold mine in Guatemala, built by some local people five years ago after Kappes, Cassiday and Associates (KCA) – a U.S. based company, tried to bring in equipment to start mining.

Tags: Health and healing, water, Indigenous Peoples, WhereWillYouGo, Economy of life for all

As Reformation jubilee ends, it's time for a reformation of the economy!

Norman Tendis

Looking back on a year of Reformation commemorations, many churches ask themselves, what has changed, or what will change after this outstanding 500 years jubilee. We look back on an enormous engagement, from congregations to the worldwide level, to organize events and celebrations. The Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation pointed out clearly: “Salvation, human beings and creation are not for sale.” The three protestant churches of Austria – Lutheran, Reformed and Methodist - celebrated the 500-years Reformation Jubilee together with thousands of participants and proclaimed “Justice, Peace and Integrity of creation” as their main topics. No question: we are talking about the economy!

Tags: Food, PilgrimsOnTheMove, Economy of life for all

Impressions from Iraq

Erik Apelgårdh

Returning from another visit to Iraq alongside Carla Khijoyan, the World Council of Churches' Middle East programme executive, and Fr Emanuel Youkhana of the Christian Aid Programme Northern Iraq (CAPNI), many images fill my mind: images of destruction, and of life hesitantly picking up again. Many uncertainties remain, prompting us to bend our heads and raise our prayers to the Lord.

Tags: WhereWillYouGo, Solidarity with churches in the Middle East, Refugees and migration, JusticeAndPeace

Diwali – the festival of lights

Anantanand Rambachan

“Religion,” the American theologian Paul Tillich once said, “is the substance of culture and culture the form of religion.” This is particularly true of Hinduism, with the result that a religious dimension can be discerned in almost all of the festivals that originate in India. Diwali, the festival of lights, the most popular and widely celebrated Hindu festival, is no exception.

Tags: Inter-religious

Who feeds the cities?

Luise Steinwachs

With mega cities "mushrooming" all over the world, one must wonder how they can be supplied with enough, and healthy, food. Ideas range from an increased rural production to urban gardening and technically complex solutions like vertical indoor gardens. As Christians, we are called to side with people who live in poverty and who are marginalized. For me and my colleagues at Bread for the World, it is important to ask: What does all this mean for the rural population and for small scale farmers?

Tags: Food, FellowPilgrims, Economy of life for all

Hungry for food, hungry for justice, hungry for peace

Manoj Kurian

October 16 is the World Food Day, and from October 15 to October 21, we celebrate the Churches' Week of Action on Food. So it is an appropriate time to reflect on the scandal and the shame that each night, one person in nine of all humanity goes to sleep hungry. 38 million more people than the previous year are hungry, bringing the number up to 815 million, reversing the 10-year trend of gradual reduction in hunger.

Tags: Food, climate change, JusticeAndPeace, just community of women and men, Economy of life for all

Radical love for the stranger and banning the bomb

Emily Welty

I don’t think that the news that the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) won the Nobel Peace Prize has fully felt like a reality for any of us who have been involved with this work over the years. Since the prize announcement on Friday, we have had the opportunity to raise our message in an unprecedented way but it is still that message at the heart of what we are doing – that nuclear weapons are immoral, unethical, dangerous and now, illegal.

Tags: Nuclear arms control, FellowPilgrims, JusticeAndPeace

Set a new course towards peace and away from nuclear threats

Jennifer Philpot Nissen

Only a handful of “Hibakusha” – the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs – remain with us in 2017. These men and women represent a living link, eye witnesses, to the otherwise unimaginable capacities of the most deadly weapon of mass destruction ever used.

Tags: Nuclear arms control, JusticeAndPeace

Faith on public trial

Wesley Granberg-Michaelson

Last weekend, as I watched the terrible scenes from Charlottesville, Va., my heart was deeply troubled, often full of anger, and distraught at what I was seeing. Sunday morning our choir performed Brandon Boyd’s arrangement of “Jacob’s Ladder.” We were privileged to have Brandon Boyd, a young, gifted African-American composer, with us accompanying the choir. His version includes a moving solo with the words, “Is there anybody here who loves my Jesus?” I reflected that those words are what many African Americans were asking in Charlottesville—words their ancestors had sung since they arrived in slave ships.

Tags: PilgrimsOnTheMove, Racism, JusticeAndPeace, PilgrInspire, FellowPilgrims, Human dignity, just community of women and men

A church that cares for its youth in the midst of HIV and AIDS

Luciano Chianeque

The old chapel of the United Evangelical Church "Anglican Community in Angola" in the neighborhood of Golf 1 in Luanda turned out to be quite small for the large number of students from the church's district school. 200 of them had come to attend a workshop on "HIV and AIDS amongst Adolescents and Youth: The Church´s Responsibility" on 2 August, organized by the World Council of Churches' Ecumenical HIV and AIDS Initiatives and Advocacy (WCC-EHAIA) team.

Tags: Health and healing, PilgrimFocus, Youth, Children's rights, just community of women and men, Economy of life for all

Moments of rest on the pilgrimage

Pavol Bargar

When recalling the 2013 WCC General Assembly in Busan, South Korea, one of the things than often comes to my mind is Madang. In Korean culture, the Madang is a space in the traditional Korean household, where the members of a larger family meet not only to discuss serious issues, but also to spend time together, to rest, to laugh, and simply to enjoy each other’s company.

Tags: WhatIsAPilgrimage, Youth, PilgrInspire, transformed, WhereWillYouGo, FellowPilgrims

The five stages of grief in Palestine and Israel

Felipe Gustavo Koch Buttelli

When it comes to the stance of churches towards the so-called conflict between Israel and Palestine, it is useful to understand it as a process of grief. The theory of the five stages of grief from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross is a creative way to describe the “dying” and “mourning” process of the churches and international community. The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 was seen by the Western world as a sign of justice for the suffering Jewish people after the Holocaust and centuries of persecution of Jews in Europe. Two elements played a major role in this initial excitement: the historical guilt of Europeans and the fulfilment of biblical prophecies related with the reestablishment of Israel.

Prayer and politics for global justice – the Church and G20

Lucy Larbi

With the slogan "global.gerecht.gestalten" (shaping globalization fairly), a Church Alliance for the G20 Summit has been established in order to actively partake in the preparation of the G20 summit. We are committed to participate in peaceful activities before and during the summit in Northern Germany.

Tags: PilgrimsOnTheMove, FellowPilgrims, Economy of life for all

Celebrating Sea Sunday - justice and peace for seafarers

Ijeoma Ajibade

Sea Sunday is celebrated by churches all over the world. Many churches will celebrate it on the 9th of July but many more will celebrate it at different times during the year. Sea Sunday is the one day of the year when churches honour and pray for seafarers. It is a day of celebration and praise but also a day to reflect and be grateful for the work seafarers do.

Tags: FellowPilgrims, Economy of life for all, JusticeAndPeace

GETI 2018 is coming to the African continent

Juliet Eneh

The Global Ecumenical Theological Institute (GETI) coming to Africa in 2018 is timely and a blessing to the continent. Christian religion is booming like never before in Africa and it is a time for different denominations to see themselves as one.

Tags: Christian Unity, FellowPilgrims, WhereWillYouGo