Resilience and Equality in the Household of God: Peggy Mulambya Kabonde’s Search for Justice

2019 ◽  
Vol 131 (8) ◽  
pp. 339-347
Author(s):  
Jonathan Kangwa
Keyword(s):  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Ordained Ministry ◽  
The World ◽  
Church And Society ◽  
World Council ◽  
Ordination Of Women ◽  
Church Structures ◽  
The Church

The World Council of Churches (WCC) commemorated its 70th anniversary in 2018. Over the years, the WCC has engaged with issues that affect women in the Church and society. It has challenged patriarchy in Church structures; calling for justice, partnership in mission and the ordination of women. The WCC initiated a decade of Churches in solidarity with women (1988 to 1998) to promote the visibility of women in the Church. Using storytelling as a heuristic tool and in the spirit of the WCC’s decade of Churches in solidarity with women, the present paper documents the life and work of the Rev. Dr. Peggy Mulambya Kabonde of the United Church of Zambia (UCZ). Firstly, a brief narrative of her life and work is presented. Secondly, her work and experience in the Church is analyzed in order to engage with the issues affecting women in ordained ministry in Africa and other parts of the world. The paper concludes by proposing a model of ecclesiology that embraces inclusivity and the equality of men and women in the Church.

Praying for Justice: The World Council of Churches and the Program to Combat Racism

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-96
Author(s):  
Kate Burlingham
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Foreign Missions ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
Violent Action ◽  
The Church

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, individuals around the world, particularly those in newly decolonized African countries, called on churches, both Protestant and Catholic, to rethink their mission and the role of Christianity in the world. This article explores these years and how they played out in Angola. A main forum for global discussion was the World Council of Churches (WCC), an ecumenical society founded alongside the United Nations after World War II. In 1968 the WCC devised a Program to Combat Racism (PCR), with a particular focus on southern Africa. The PCR's approach to combating racism proved controversial. The WCC began supporting anti-colonial organizations against white minority regimes, even though many of these organizations relied on violence. Far from disavowing violent groups, the PCR's architects explicitly argued that, at times, violent action was justified. Much of the PCR funding went to Angolan revolutionary groups and to individuals who had been educated in U.S. and Canadian foreign missions. The article situates global conversations within local debates between missionaries and Angolans about the role of the missions in the colonial project and the future of the church in Africa.

“Although We Cannot Fully Meet” the Roman Catholic Response to Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry

1989 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-267
Author(s):  
Peter R. Cross
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
The Church

The publication of Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry by the World Council of Churches in 1982 was the culmination of more than fifty years of ecumenical discussion. The document was designed to elicit official comment from the churches involved in its production and also to involve a wide membership of the churches in the process of reception of the text by taking its insights into their spiritual, pastoral and theological life. This present article analyses the response of the Roman Catholic Church. The response is largely positive, but the methodology of the document reveals unresolved tensions concerning theological reformulation while the wider issue touching reception in the life of the Church is avoided.

Covenants

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian Kingston
Keyword(s):  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
Methodist Church ◽  
The Road ◽  
Church Of Ireland ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
History Of ◽  
On The Road ◽  
The Church ◽  
Different Parts

This chapter explores the notion of covenant as an instrument which may facilitate closer and more binding relationships between or among churches wanting to commit to each other in a further step on the road to complete unity. The history of the term is outlined, noting its origin with the World Council of Churches. Several recent covenant relationships in different parts of the world are examined, with comments on their development and documentation. It is observed that a leading motivation in the establishment of covenants has been that of mission, while a significant challenge has been varying theologies of ministry. Particular note is taken of the covenant between the Methodist Church in Ireland and the Church of Ireland (Anglican), in which these churches are formulating legislation to facilitate interchangeability of ministries.

God, Morality, and Politics

1979 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-9
Author(s):  
Eugene Carson Blake
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Chief Executive ◽  
National Council ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
The World ◽  
Church And Society ◽  
World Council ◽  
National Council Of Churches

Eugene Carson Blake has in recent years been actively associated with the Christian citizens' movement, Bread for the World. Before retiring as Secretary of the World Council of Churches in 1972, he served both church and society in many leading capacities, as a distinguished pastor, the chief executive officer of his denomination (the United Presbyterian Church), university and seminary trustee, and president of the National Council of Churches. In 1960, he preached a sermon in the Episcopal Cathedral of San Francisco, where the late James A. Pike was Bishop. This sermon, welcomed by the Bishop, led to the establishment of the Consultation on Church Union. In the forefront of the civil rights movement, Blake was jailed, vilified, and denounced as a communist. In 1978, he was made the subject of a biography, Eugene Carson Blake: Prophet With Portfolio, by R. Douglas Brackenridge (Seabury Press). This present essay is a revised version of an address delivered at Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, as “The Willson Lecture.”

scholarly journals Sårbarhet, mangfold og menneskerettigheter

2020 ◽  
pp. 129-151
Author(s):  
Hans Morten Haugen
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
People With Disabilities ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Enabling Technology ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
A Value ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
The Church

The article examines recent understandings of vulnerability and exposedness, and studies proving that people with disabilities are more exposed to violence, discrimination, and various forms of exclusion. Diversity has been elevated as a value, both in societies and in churches. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) is the only human rights treaty that names specific human rights principles, and one of these principles is diversity. There are also opposing trends to the enhanced recognition of diversity, summarized in three points: preservation of status quo; highlighting majority normality; and budgetary efficiency are given priority over empowering solutions. The Church of Norway, inspired by the World Council of Churches, wants to promote inclusion and empowerment, but is itself lagging behind, for instance in providing access to enabling technology.

Church

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam DeVille
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
Geographical Scope ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity

The chapter traces developments in ecclesiology through the twentieth century, as the ecumenical movement unfolded, and raises questions about the relationship between the church and the communion of the Persons of the Trinity, and about the nature of the Church as eucharistic and sacramental. Further more practical questions about authority, primacy, and synodality (or conciliarity) are also examined in light of the work of multilateral ecumenical dialogues (especially within the World Council of Churches), and bilateral dialogues, particularly the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) and the international Roman Catholic–Orthodox theological dialogue. Considerable progress has been made on all these questions, but new issues have recently arisen, and these are briefly treated, including questions of imperfect communion, of the ordination of women and of those in same-sex relationships, and questions of geographical scope relative to jurisdiction and canonical territory.

Feminist Critiques, Visions, and Models of the Church

2018 ◽  
pp. 526-552
Author(s):  
Elaine Graham
Keyword(s):  
Historical Evidence ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
Everyday Experience ◽  
Full Participation ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
The Church

Women have been vastly under-represented within the church’s ministries. Feminist ecclesiologies invariably begin from this situation of invisibility and discrimination, whilst arguing for the historic and contemporary legitimacy of women’s full participation alongside men. Feminist critiques and reconstructions have drawn on biblical and historical evidence in order to refute patterns of hierarchy and exclusion in favour of more egalitarian traditions of the church as a community of equals. The various strands of the ‘Women-Church’ movement have also been central to a practical feminist ecclesiology, in which women have sought new ways to name their everyday experience as sacred and to exercise new patterns of ministry and leadership. Institutionally-led initiatives, such as the World Council of Churches’ programme on The Community of Women and Men in the Church, have met with mixed success, although worship has been one of the most creative well-springs of feminist activity and renewal.

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