A statement by the Moderator, Rev David Fotheringham
(originally published on 26th November on World Communion of Reformed Churches)
Rev. Professor Choan Seng Song, an influential theologian, ecumenical pioneer, and advocate for justice died on 26 November 2024.
Spanning decades and continents, Professor Song’s remarkable career shaped the identity and mission of the church in profound ways. His passing marks a significant loss, yet his enduring legacy of faith, scholarship, and advocacy will continue to inspire generations.
Rev. Dr. C. S. Song was a theologian of extraordinary depth and insight, whose work was firmly rooted in his Christian Asian heritage. His reflections, which wove together faith, culture, and a commitment to liberation, spoke not only to the church’s spiritual mission but also to its call to address social and economic injustices. Over the course of his distinguished career, Professor Song served as a mentor and teacher in Taiwan, the United States, Singapore, and Hong Kong, leaving a transformative mark on the lives of his students and colleagues.
“It is with a sense of deep sadness that we heard of the passing of the Rev. Professor Choan Seng Song,” said Rev. Dr. Setri Nyomi, general secretary of the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC). “We thank God for his life and the profound impact he had on so many. His theological voice, grounded in his Asian Christian roots, was a clarion call for justice and liberation. He challenged the church to not only preach the Gospel but to embody it in transformative ways,” added Nyomi.
Adding to the tributes, Rev. Najla Kassab, president of the WCRC, reflected on Song’s pivotal role in the global Reformed movement.
“Today, the passing of Dr. C. S. Song comes at a time when we remember the long journey that the WCRC has enjoyed for around 150 years, shaped by a faithful cloud of witnesses who strengthened the Communion. Dr. Song, in his role as President of WARC between 1997 and 2004, stands as a great witness to sincere service and commitment to deepening the communion. His theology impacted many, and his dedication remains a powerful expression of contextual theology,” shared Kassab.
Professor Song’s influence extended far beyond the classroom. His ecumenical contributions were immense, including his service as Director of Studies for the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) and as Associate Director of the Faith and Order Commission at the World Council of Churches. During his tenure as WARC President, the Accra Confession – a landmark theological document that continues to guide churches worldwide in addressing economic injustice and environmental degradation – was developed.
“Song’s leadership during the development of the Accra Confession was visionary,” noted Nyomi. “He believed in a church that speaks truth to power and acts boldly for justice. This conviction shaped his presidency and will continue to inspire us,” expressed Nyomi.
“Under his leadership, the WCRC approved the Accra Confession during its General Council in Accra, Ghana, in 2004. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Accra Confession, a powerful statement denouncing economic and ecological injustice. The injustices that the Accra Confession confronted two decades ago have not disappeared – they have worsened. Dr. Song’s passing serves as a poignant reminder of the ongoing need to dedicate ourselves to the fight against injustice, carrying forward the legacy of his prophetic vision and tireless commitment,” shared Yueh-Wen Lu, former Vice President, WCRC.
For many, Song was more than a theologian or leader – he was a mentor and a friend. His ability to combine theological depth with practical action earned him the admiration of students, colleagues, and church leaders across the globe.
The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, where Song’s faith journey began, joins the global church in mourning his loss. The WCRC has extended its heartfelt condolences to his family, friends, and the ecumenical community.
“With his passing, the Reformed family and the ecumenical movement have lost a great leader, mentor, and friend,” said Nyomi. “We give thanks for his life and pray that his legacy will continue to guide us. May he rest in perfect peace,” Nyomi reflected.
Rev. Dr. C. S. Song’s life reminds us that theology is not merely an academic pursuit – it is a call to action and a witness to God’s boundless love. His remarkable contributions will live on in the lives he touched and the movements he championed.
Statement on the Commemoration of the Religious Observances of Advent and Christmas in the Midst of the Continuing War
November 22, 2024
Last year, as a means of standing in solidarity with the multitudes suffering from the newly erupted war, We, the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem, took a mutual decision to call upon our congregations to forego the public display of Christmas lights and decorations, along with their associated festivities.
While our intentions in doing so were good, many around the world nevertheless misinterpreted this call to signify a “Cancellation of Christmas” in the Holy Land – the very place of our Lord’s Holy Nativity. Because of this, our unique witness to the Christmas message of light emerging out of darkness (John 1:9) was diminished not only around the world, but also among our own people.
For this reason, for the coming Advent and Christmas seasons, we encourage our congregations and people to fully commemorate the approach and arrival of Christ’s birth by giving public signs of Christian hope.
At the same time, we also call upon them to do so in ways that are sensitive to the severe afflictions that millions in our region continue to endure. These should certainly include upholding them continuously in our prayers, reaching out to them with deeds of kindness and charity, and welcoming them as Christ himself has welcomed each of us (Romans 15:7).
In these ways, we will echo the Christmas story itself, where the angels announced to the shepherds glad tidings of Christ’s birth in the midst of similarly dark times in our region (Luke 2:8–20), offering to them and to the entire world a message of divine hope and peace.
—The Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem
(image: St George’s Cathedral, Jerusalem)
“The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light” (Rom. 13:12, NKJV).
Is there a place for religion in schools by Herbert Um (published in Ridley College magazine 2024)
In Victoria, GRE is part of the Learning about Worldviews and Religions in Humanities and Ethical Capability curriculum. GRE aims to help students develop an understanding of religious and non-religious worldviews, and to appreciate the values that underpin a multicultural society. GRE can help students to develop tolerance for other religions and world views as well as understand their own identity and the formation of other people’s identities. In the process it also serves to promote social cohesion.
7 October 2024 (originally published on World Council of Churches website)
World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay has called on all WCC member churches and partners, and all people of faith and good will, to pray and act for peace in the Holy Land.
On this day in 2023, Hamas launched a brutal attack on southern Israel that became the catalyst for a year of escalating and widening conflict in the region.
During this attack, numerous atrocities were committed in utter violation of the most fundamental principles of international law and morality, with some 1,200 people being killed – including many young people attending a music festival, as well as children, women and elderly people in several civilian communities in the region – and 251 hostages being taken, of whom 97 are still being held one year later. While understanding the long history of occupation and oppression that preceded these events, the WCC has condemned the attack on innocent Israeli civilians.
The enormity of Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza is shockingly unacceptable. It has exponentially compounded the violations and suffering inflicted on innocent civilians, with more than 41,700 people killed – including over 16,000 children – a further nearly 100,000 people wounded, and over 10,000 missing and presumed dead underneath the rubble, according to health authorities in the enclave. Around 1.9 million people – 90% of the population of Gaza – have been forcibly displaced from their homes, many multiple times, and almost half a million people are facing catastrophic food insecurity, while Gaza’s critical infrastructure, medical and education services, housing, economy, farmland, and fishing fleets have largely been laid to waste. Israel’s war in Gaza has made the territory unliveable, and has given rise to claims of genocide which have been judged by the International Court of Justice as plausible.
Moreover, during this period violent attacks and other violations by illegal settlers and Israeli security forces against Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem have risen sharply. Extremist elements in Israeli society have, among other things, escalated their threats against and attacks on Christian communities, clergy, churches and institutions, in most cases without criminal sanction.
Israel’s war in Gaza and its violations of the sovereignty of neighbouring States have also massively amplified tensions in the wider region, resulting in increased military confrontation on multiple fronts, intensified exchanges of fire with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and for the first time directly with Iran. As a result, the toll of death, destruction and displacement is rising for yet more communities in the region. In Lebanon, the death toll from two weeks of Israeli attacks on Beirut, Bekaa and southern Lebanon is estimated to have already surpassed 2,000, and more than one million people have had to flee their homes. Israel’s ground incursion into southern Lebanon, and the missile attacks and other hostilities between Iran and Israel, now threaten an even wider conflict, setting the whole Middle East region ablaze, and compounding the existing threats to global peace and stability.
One year after the attacks of 7 October 2023, Israel and its adversaries seem locked in a deadly spiral of violence, accelerating by the day, which risks throwing the whole region into intractable conflict with profound humanitarian and security consequences for all its peoples. In this context, the already grave threats to the future presence of the indigenous Christian communities of the Holy Land are reaching an existential tipping point.
If the modern history of the Middle East teaches one clear lesson, it is that there is no path to sustainable peace through repeated cycles of armed conflict and continuing occupation and oppression, but only to increasing antagonism, hatred and extremism on all sides. The only solution is to break the cycle of violence, to refrain from more killing and destruction, and to engage in dialogue and negotiations for a peace founded on justice and equal rights for all. Israel, Iran and all conflict parties must commit immediately to a ceasefire on all fronts. Hamas must release all the remaining hostages immediately and unconditionally. Israel must release Palestinian political prisoners and move swiftly to ending its occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people in the territories occupied since 1967, and guarantee equal human rights for all people in its territory, regardless of race, religion or origin. And all members of the international community must end their complicity in sustaining conflict, occupation and oppression in the region.
The alternative is a real and present threat to the lives and future of all people in the region, and to justice, reconciliation and unity in our fragmented and fragile world.
Today, the World Council of Churches calls on all its member churches and partners, and all people of faith and good will, to pray and act for peace in the Holy Land, extending solidarity to all people affected and threatened by the escalating violence in the region, and urging all those responsible for providing and using the weapons of war to turn away from violence and towards peace. Today our prayer is that the desire for peace and justice will overcome the continued obsession with war and violence.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” Matthew 5:9
Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay
General Secretary
World Council of Churches
(originally posted on WCC website, 10th October 2024)
Categories
Yom Kippur 2024
Yom Kippur (‘Day of Atonement’) is the holiest day of the year in Judaism. This year it will be from sundown on October 11th until sundown on the next day. The Jewish community spend 25 hours without food or drink, engaged in prayer and reflection.
Alongside the related holiday of Rosh HaShanah (Jewish New Year), Yom Kipppur is one of the two components of the High Holy Days of Judaism.
In an article in the Washington Post entitled ‘The thin joy of the new year, the horror of the one just concluded’, Ruth Marcus writes that ‘all the apples dipped in all the honey in the world cannot erase the bitterness of the year just concluded or offer reassurance of a year to come that will be any less painful or precarious.
She quotes from the prophet Jeremiah, in a passage used in the liturgy for Rosh Hashanah, ‘a cry is heard in Ramah – wailing, bitter weeping – Rachel weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted for her children, who are gone’.
(So much wailing – for Jewish people, for Palestinian people, for our global community)
She writes:
‘We weep, we must weep, for all the children. Because it is also true: No fast can be easy when so many Gazan children are dead and maimed. Their fates are something I will mourn, and for which I will atone in synagogue this week, because our sins are collective as well as individual”
On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Jewish people listen to the piercing sound of the shofar, the ram’s horn. It is usually understood as a wake-up call, to jolt us out of complacency and ponder our deeds.
‘This year for the first time in my life, this teaching doesn’t work’, said Rabbi Lauren Holtzblatt. ‘We’re already awake. We’re on edge, and we’re shaken to our cores. This year, the shofar sounds more like wailing to me – a ritual that captures the utter sorrow and pain and unimaginable loss of this year. The shofar is a representation of the wordless anguish that hovers over us and in us. Anguish that we cannot turn away from. Anguish that we cannot close from our ears or our hearts. But it is also our teacher… What if this year the shofar is a call to us from thousands of years ago asking us to find another way forward, to end the sacrificing of our children and to cling to life?’
An excerpt from the article by Ruth Marcus in The Washington Post, 8th October 2024
Categories
The Knotted Gun
The original sculpture of The Knotted Gun also known as “Non-Violence” was created by Swedish artist Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd (1934-2016), a friend of John Lennon’s family. He created it after Lennon’s tragic death as he wanted to honour the singer’s vision of a peaceful world.
In 1988, a bronze version of the sculpture was unveiled in front of the United Nations’ headquarters (donated by the Government of Luxembourg)
Replicas have been placed in more than 30 strategic locations around the world including Beirut (Lebanon).
This week Beirut has suffered ‘unprecedented’ bombardment” with a series of gigantic blasts that reduced six buildings to rubble.
Military activity in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Ukraine, Sudan and other places around the world use more than guns but the ‘knotted gun’ remains a powerful call to de-escalate violence and the weapons of war which jeapardize international peace and security and sustainable development. And new and emerging weapon technologies including autonomous weapons and drones pose a challenge to global security as do nuclear weapons as has been threatened more than once in the Russian-Ukraine war.
How many resources are wasted on military spending, which sadly continues to increase! I sincerely hope that the international community understands that disarmament is first and foremost a moral duty. Let us keep this clearly in our minds. This requires courage from all members of the great family of nation, to move from an equilibrium of fear to an equilibrium of trust.
(Pope Francis, St Peter’s Square, 3 March 2024)
There are many from Lebanon who now call Australia home, who watch from the safe shores of Australia and look with dismay, concern and shock at what is happening in Lebanon to innocent civilians.
Prayer (adapted from here)
O God, you hate nothing that you have made and tenderly call your creation into reconciliation with you, that we all may have life in abundance.
Forgive us for the times when we have ignored your call to follow in the way of the reconciling Christ. Turn our hearts to make us more attentive to the needs of those who suffer as a result of war, oppression, displacement and poverty.
We pray particularly for the civilians in Lebanon who suffer the consequences of military bombardment, and who now face a catastrophic crisis.
Sustain them in the power of your Holy Spirit and inspire them to hold onto a vision for peace, and your promise that “Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest”. (Isaiah 29:17)
Lord in your mercy, Hear our prayer. Amen.
Prayer (adapted from here)
God of refuge,
hear our prayer
as we hold the people of Beirut
in our hearts at this time.
Fill us with compassion
and move us to reach out in love.
In your mercy,
bring comfort to those who mourn,
healing to those who are injured,
shelter to those who are homeless
sustenance to those who hunger.
Lead us in your ways
so that together we may bring
the light of new hope
wherever there is destruction and despair.
We ask this through Christ our Lord, Amen.
Pastoral Statement on the Bombings in Lebanon and the Conflict in the Middle East (see full statement here)
Week of Prayer for Peace in the Middle East from 29 September to 5 October 2024.
Rev Charissa Suli, President of the Uniting Church in Australia
24 September 2024
It is with a heavy heart that I reach out to you regarding the tragic events unfolding in Lebanon. On 23 September 2024, devastating airstrikes in southern and eastern Lebanon claimed the lives of over 492 people, leaving more than 1600 others injured and displacing many countless families. As violence escalates in the region, the situation has deeply affected the lives of people in Lebanon, Israel, and Palestine. This ongoing conflict continues to cause immense suffering and loss on all sides.
As we grapple with this news, we are reminded of the deep connections we have within our Uniting Church family. In the past 24 hours I have heard from people in the Uniting Church community grieving for their family, friends, and loved ones back in Lebanon. We hold them in our prayers, standing in solidarity as they process pain and uncertainty.
In these troubled times, we turn to the Word of God for peace and hope. These words of Jesus remind us:
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” (Jn 14:27).
This peace, a gift from Christ, transcends the fear and violence that so often consumes our world. Let us hold fast to this promise, even in the darkest moments.
Let us unite in faith, praying for peace in this region, and for all those affected by the destruction and suffering. Now is a time when we must come together, transcending the boundaries of faith and tradition, to pray for an end to this violence and to support all who are affected. By standing together in solidarity and compassion, we can weave the threads of love that bind us as one human family.
Categories
‘Something’…
…that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
2 Corinthians 5:19.
The word ‘ecumenical’ is often linked to the word ‘movement’ so that the two seem inseparable. The word ‘ecumenical’ is the adjective, to the noun ‘movement’. It implies that among other movements there is a distinctive element that distinguishes it compared to other movements.
I quite like the way the Cambridge Dictionary defines ‘movement’. It is a group of people with the same beliefs who work together to achieve something. There is the element of certainty ‘with the same beliefs and an openness ‘to achieve something’.
We can say that in the Ecumenical Movement we are united in a common faith in the Risen Jesus Christ. Our faith calls us into discipleship and into the life of Christian Communities. We understand together that ‘in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.’ 2 Corinthians 5:19.
This is an element of our ‘same belief’ and part of the basis of the spirituality of being ecumenical. The noun, ‘movement’, suggests that out of this common faith we come together to do something.
In the past the fear that this something was the creation of one super church! This has never been, and still is not the goal. Seeking to achieve something together is a way of realising that as churches we are ‘better together’. We express and live out our faith in different ways. We identify these differences when we compare ourselves to each other. No one Christian tradition is the complete fulfilment of God’s vision for the Church, and we know we have much to learn from each other.
When we are together, our voice is clearer, our witness is strong, and our differences recede.
The NCCA Board is in conversation about the ‘something’ to be achieved in the coming years. We want it to be realistic, positive, clearly Christian and a source of hope. Such a something is identified not only though the sharing of ideas, it is also the product of us praying together and affirming our common hope in Christ. We invite your prayers in this journey.!
Rev John Gilmore
NCCA President