WCC NEWS: Latest issue of The Ecumenical Review offers “reflections on the oikoumene”

Taking its cue from a lecture by former World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Philip Potter, the October issue of the WCC quarterly The Ecumenical Review explores the meaning of the “oikoumene,” which in Greek refers to the whole inhabited earth and gives “ecumenism” its name. Photo: Albin Hillert/WCC 28 October 2021 In a 1974 lecture titled “The Love of Power or the Power of Love,” Potter described the oikoumene as “the sphere of God’s Reign, and his is the reign of love, the re-uniting of humanity from separation.” The ecumenical movement, he said, is “God’s call to us to become participants in his purpose of bringing the whole oikoumene under his power of love.” This issue of The Ecumenical Review offers reflections on the meaning of the oikoumene for the  ecumenical movement. Articles range from the struggle against racism, to the ecumenical engagement for human rights; from the challenge to the oikoumene from climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, to “unheard voices” in discussions of human sexuality; the need to address the sensual side of knowledge, cultures, religion, and theology; as well as how churches can become models of “unity in reconciled diversity.” The issue also includes a set of tributes to Potter, the WCC’s first general secretary from the global South, who was born 100 years ago on 19 August 1921 and who died on 31 March 2015. In the editorial, Stephen G. Brown notes that Potter’s lecture on the “power of love” offers insights for the forthcoming WCC assembly in 2022, where for the first time “love” forms part of an assembly theme: “Christ’s love moves the world to reconciliation and unity.” The Ecumenical Review is published four times a year by Wiley on behalf of the WCC.   Read an Open Access article from the latest issue by Claudia Jahnel: “The universal word speaks only in dialect”: Postcolonial Impulses for an Ecumenism of Sensual Unity and an Aesthetic Ecumenical Theology Table of contents of latest issue Free sample issue: “Christ’s Love in the Midst of Pandemic: Moving the World to Reconciliation and Solidarity.”  More information about The Ecumenical Review Subscriptions to The Ecumenical Review See more

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 349 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 550 million Christians in over 120 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC acting general secretary is Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca, from the Orthodox Church in Romania. Media contact: +41 79 507 6363; www.oikoumene.org/press Our visiting address is: World Council of Churches 150 route de Ferney Geneve 2 1211 Switzerland