Member Church News: New Requiem, Climate Justice, Interfaith Peace

A COVID lament inspires original choral composition for Scotland festival: It started as a very personal piece of pain and loss. It’s now a requiem for the world during a global pandemic. Karen Georgia Thompson’s experience with COVID-19 prompted a theological reflection entitled “No Alleluias.” It has been transformed into an original choral work that will premiere at the close of the Just Festival 2021 on Saturday, 28 August.

Two decades ago, Agnaldo Pereira Gomes and his congregation began the Bethel Association of Tupã (Brazil) to provide assistance to teen-aged offenders, aged 12 to 18, giving them hope and possibilities for a better future.

The Ecumenical Council of Churches in Hungary organized an ecumenical service on the eve of the State Foundation Day (20 August) in the Reformed Church of Szilágyi Dezső Square in Budapest (Buda congregation). At the service, Bishop Zoltán Balog, ministerial president of the Synod, preached the Word of God based on Psalm 33:12: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he chose for his inheritance.”

The “Praying Hands” by Albrecht Dürer touch people around the world. Craftsmanship brilliance has contributed to their fame, but probably also some trickery, says Hanns Herman in an article for Reformiert.

The ACT Alliance Climate Justice Team is urging all to join the Global Prayer and Action Chain in the run up to COP 26, scheduled to take place in Glasgow, UK, this November, as this is a crucial moment in the fight for climate justice.

In the years since it was founded in 2016, the International Centre for Inter-Faith Peace and Harmony in Kaduna, Nigeria has been building a cadre of peacemakers who are witnesses to inter-religious peace and harmony. It also continues to serve as a physical symbol helping Muslims and Christians work together more effectively.

Philip Potter’s spirit and profound direction of ‘only connect’ resonates with peacemakers: Absorbing Philip Potter’s profoundly simple direction for the ecumenical movement—“only connect”—those gathered for an online tribute to the former World Council of Churches general secretary tapped into the still-growing legacy of a remarkable man.