Almost 40 faith leaders signed the joint appeal, which was presented by Pope Francis. Signatories included World Council of Churches acting general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca, along with representatives from across the Christian denominations, Sunni and Shi’a Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism and Jainism.

The appeal calls for the world to achieve net-zero carbon emissions as soon as possible, and to limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. “As leaders and scholars from various religious traditions, we unite in a spirit of humility, responsibility, mutual respect and open dialogue,” reads the appeal. “This dialogue is not limited to merely the exchange of ideas, but is focused on the desire to walk in companionship, recognizing our call to live in harmony with one another and with nature.”

The appeal also presses wealthier nations and those with the greatest responsibility to take the lead, stepping up their climate action at home and financially supporting vulnerable countries to adapt to and address climate change.

The faith leaders and scientists also urge governments to raise their ambition and their international cooperation to transition to clean energy and to sustainable land use practices, environmentally friendly food systems and responsible financing.

Source: World Council of Churches

The certificate, jointly prepared in English and Persian by the WCC and the Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue, is to be sent to the more than 50 participants in the bilateral dialogue over the last 25 years, thanking each of them for their contribution.

Beginning with a meeting in Geneva in 1995, and alternating between there and Tehran, the WCC and the Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue have met regularly, addressing a number of themes including: “Religion and the Contemporary World,” “Religions and Globalization,” “Religion and Peaceful Coexistence” and “Spirituality and Modernity.”

WCC interim general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca exchanged greetings with Dr Abuzar Ebrahimi Torkaman, head of the Islamic Culture and Relations Organization, and Dr Mohammad Mahdi Tashkiri, director general of the Center.

Source: The World Council of Churches

The contest aims to encourage people under the age of 30 with interests in the field of interreligious relations and engagement to develop and share their ideas on different subjects such as: Christian theologies of interreligious engagement; some aspect of another religious tradition which is relevant to its relationship to Christianity; religious pluralism more widely; or the theory or practice of interreligious dialogue. Essays may also reflect on interreligious cooperation for the sake of the common good; or the World Council of Churches and interreligious relations.

The five best essays, chosen by a panel of judges comprising of WCC program executives and faculty from the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey, will be published in the 2021 issue of Current Dialogue, the WCC’s journal for interreligious encounter. Further, the prizewinning authors will have the opportunity to present their work in a conference on “The Future of Interreligious Dialogue” (either physically or virtually) that is being planned for 2021. At this stage it is likely that participation in this conference will be virtual.

All entries, should be 3,500-5,000 words in length (including notes), and be written in English, following the WCC style guide which is available upon request at Media@wcc-coe.org. Contributions must be the original work of the participants and should not have been published elsewhere.

The deadline for the competition is 15 January 2021.

Source: The World Council of Churches

The session, entitled “Water and Faith: Building partnerships to achieve the SDGs” was the second consecutive one on faith and water at the annual World Water Week. By showcasing a range of good practices by faith communities done to help achieve the SDGs on water and sanitation, it highlighted the importance of working together, within church traditions, ecumenically and in engagement between faith communities and the water community at large.

Reflecting on the role of faith engagement in achieving the SDGs, Rev. Henrik Grape, of the Church of Sweden and coordinator of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Working Group on Climate Change, said, “We have sometimes thought in the past that for many climate and water issues, technology will come to the rescue in the end. But we see today that while there are a lot of hopeful developments in the area of technology and environmentally-friendly solutions, we also need value-based organizations and communities to act as a driving force, to act and achieve changes in our behavior and habits.”

The theme of water runs through many of the world religions, the participants observed, and faith leaders rarely need to be convinced of the importance and sacredness of water as a source of life. Instead, a key point of focus should be on strengthening the many concrete water projects run by faith communities across the world.

The session was organized by the WCC Ecumenical Water Network in collaboration with Church of Sweden, Global Water Partnership, Stockholm International Water Institute, and Swedish Institute Alexandria.

Source: World Council of Churches

“One of the most longstanding and enduring interreligious relationships that the WCC has enjoyed over a number of years is that with our colleagues in the Centre for Interreligious Dialogue,” said Clare Amos, WCC program executive for interreligious dialogue.

The recent meeting was the ninth gathering of a bilateral dialogue that has continued for more than 20 years.

“Even though some of the participants in both the Iranian Shia delegation and the delegation of the WCC were new – there was present a genuine sense of warmth, familiarity and friendliness stemming from long experience that both made our sessions more pleasant and enabled us to dig deeper and share the wisdom of our respective religious traditions,” said Amos.

The theme for this year’s dialogue was “The Interpretative Role of Sacred Texts in Establishing a World Free from Violence”. Though the issue of religion and violence and the hope of religion becoming a tool in peace-building are widely explored in today’s interreligious dialogues, the decision to focus on sacred texts was a unique aspect of the recent dialogue, which reflected on the Bible and the Qur’an as potential drivers of conflict or peace.

“We explored together some of the criteria important to take into account when engaged in scriptural interpretation – above all the criteria of what approaches were life-giving and what reflected love,” said Amos. “We looked at how ethical human relations and the needs of justice were essential to bear in mind when interpreting our sacred texts.”

The discussion affirmed the importance of taking context seriously when interpreting such texts: the particular Shi’a valuing of aql (reason) informed the discussion, as did the acknowledgement by both delegations that power relationships inevitably informed the process of scriptural interpretation. A powerful image – which had previously been offered to the group by Ayatollah Damad – was that the Qur’an could both act as a ladder to enable people to climb up to heaven, or as a rope that gradually pulled one down into a well of deep darkness. It was an image that resonated with the Christian participants as they too engaged with the Christian Bible.

The WCC delegation also gathered insight from Armenian people in Tehran. “Our visit to ‘Armenian City’ in the middle of Tehran was an eye-opener, and helped us understand how the Armenian community in Tehran is working to sustain its identity and cultural life in a context which can sometimes present significant challenges,” said Amos.

Participants issued a communique that describes the history of such dialogues and outlined major points they discussed. “In both Christianity and Islam the value both of ethical human relations and of the needs of justice functioned as criteria that were essential to bear in mind when interpreting our sacred texts,” reads the communique. “Correspondingly the foundational moral role that sacred texts play in helping to shape individuals and communities over a period of centuries was also vital to bear in mind.”

The dialogue also acknowledged the ways that power, its possession and its lack, affects the interpretation of texts. “An attitude of humility in which we were prepared to acknowledge that the complete truth can only be fully known in heaven was important in order to enable our sacred texts to be life-giving rather than conflict creating,” reads the communique.

Participants expressed their gratitude to Dr Abuzar Ebrahimi, director of the Islamic Culture and Relations Organization, and to Archbishop Sebouh Sarkissian, Armenian Archbishop of Tehran, who was a member of both delegations, for their generous hospitality. “Such bilateral dialogue meetings, important though they are, cannot be seen as ends in themselves,” said concluded Amos. “That is certainly true in this case. There have been over the years a number of valuable spinoffs from the WCC-CID dialogue – often involving the exchange of young people between WCC programs and the Ecumenical Institute and universities in Tehran or Qom.”

Source: World Council of Churches

“In many cases, migrants and refugees are seeking to escape situations of violence and grave human rights violations that in some cases may amount to atrocity crimes, by which I mean genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity”, stated Adama Dieng, Special Adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide.

The UN along with the United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on Religion and Development, the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the International Dialogue Centre (KAICIID) organized the event…

Speakers were unanimous in their call for religious leaders to be included in addressing not only the symptoms, but also the root causes of forced migration and human trafficking, from the point of departure, to assisting with integration into their host countries at the points of destination.

“Religious leaders know their communities. They have access to the people. They are trusted and respected by their communities and are already working to save and improve lives where they are most needed. Through their example and guidance, communities can combat prejudice, support integration and build peace,” said Faisal Bin Muaammar, Secretary General of the International Dialogue Centre. Rudelmar Bueno de Faria, the WCC Representative to the United Nations, stressed that “especially from a faith based perspective, from which human dignity is a key concept and commitment, we are obliged to address the entire experience.”

Source: The World Council of Churches

The joint meeting at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva was followed by a public lecture at the WCC Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, Switzerland, where the Grand Imam spoke on “The Role of Religious Leaders in Achieving World Peace.”

A joint communiqué adopted by participants in the Geneva sessions pledged a continuation of practical cooperation among religious communities. The statement added: “The overriding concern of the meeting was peace, and particularly the role of religions, religious leaders and faith-based organizations in creating a culture of peace and practices of peacemaking. As children of Abraham, we agree that humanity was created to share the gifts of love and compassion, peace and mercy, honesty and sincerity.” At the end of the meeting, both parties agreed to continue and convene a following meeting in 2017 in Cairo, Egypt.

Source: The World Council of Churches

Dr al-Tayyeb in his lecture on “The Responsibility of Religious Leaders in Building World Peace” urged Christians and Muslims “to follow our path as believers from the different parts of the world, in order to realize humanity’s hope to overcome the uncivilized obstacles that could bring us back to the era of darkness, ignorance and the law of the jungle.”

Al-Tayyeb’s lecture followed the two-day dialogue and planning sessions of the Muslim Council of Elders with a delegation from the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Geneva. It took place during 70th anniversary celebrations at the Ecumenical Institute, Bossey, Switzerland, on 1 October. The Grand Imam’s visit, which he and the WCC general secretary, Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, called “historic and unprecedented,” came two months after a jointly organized youth seminar in Al-Azhar.

The lecture, before an audience of about 150 persons, included a radical critique of the reigning powers and secular assumptions of the present world order. Even if nonreligious factors “can realize modernity, technological and scientific development,” the Grand Imam said, “they have failed to grant humankind a life of security, stability and peace.”

Al-Tayyeb particularly criticized widespread cynicism and secularism. The modern era, he said, marked by a loss of religious values, has been scorched by the prevalence of armed conflict (including two world wars), which is fueled by the arms trade. Its geopolitical configuration “led to the happiness of a limited category of individuals at great cost to the majority of people, living in extreme poverty.”

Source: The World Council of Churches

In November 2015, I was part of a delegation participating in a dialogue looking at ways to prevent violence, especially in the name of religion. Among the delegates were members of the Anglican Church, the Armenian Church, the Church of Pakistan and Shi‘a Muslims from Iran.

I travelled from the UK and there were other participants from Germany, Iran Lebanon, Pakistan, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and United States of America. The discussion was very positive and fruitful. I provided a Shi‘a perspective on how to address the problem of violence in the name of religion and explained that there are three elements in the Shi‘a Islamic teaching namely rationality, spirituality and search for justice that when applied correctly can help to avoid extremism and fanaticism. This point was unanimously accepted by all delegates who saw them as positive elements for any religious tradition to consider. In that round of dialogue, I gave another lecture on Muslim Christian relations.

A few months ago, I was invited by the Ecumenical Centre of the World Council of Churches to teach in their annual summer course. Every summer they offer a three-week course for Muslims, Christians and Jews from different countries. Apart from studying it also gives them a chance to live together and experience and develop honest friendship.

The course is structured in a way that Muslims, Christians and Jews listen and attend each other’s presentations. My task was to deliver two sessions of 90 minutes introducing Islam followed by a Muslim lady, a scholar from Lebanon, who was supposed to talk about migration in Islam. Every year there is a theme and this year the theme was migration, reflecting the recent large scale exodus affecting Europe. The course also includes spiritual sharing and scriptural reasoning sessions as well as visits of the United Nations, the World Council of Churches, mosques and the Museum of the Reformation in Geneva.

Having accepted the invitation I traveled to Geneva from 26-28 July. There I met some of the professors and had informal meetings and discussions with the students but the main activity was to deliver the course. I started my presentation by providing some statistics about Islam and Muslims in general, giving an overview of the landscape of Islam followed by information on the historical background. This was particularly well received especially by non Muslims.

Continue reading at: Islam Today Magazine