Member Church News: Women, Synods, Ecumenism

Presbyterians are gearing up to participate in the 66th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, an annual gathering that will focus on empowering women and girls and protecting the planet.

The United Church of Canada’s 44th General Council will take place fully online, commencing Sunday, 13 February, and ending on 7 August.

Meanwhile, the Waldensian Church of the River Plate shortened its synod to two days of in-person meetings due to the pandemic.

Jooseop Keum, general secretary of the Council for World Mission, called the Global Christian Leaders (GCF) to re-envision the ecumenism. Invited by the GCF for its Facilitation Group Meeting, Keum gave a stimulating message challenging the members to discern ways to re-envision ecumenism in this pandemic-stricken world.

M. Craig Barnes, seventh president of Princeton Theological Seminary, has announced his intention to retire in 2023. Barnes will serve until a new president is named and assumes office, no later than June 2023.

The latest issue of The Ecumenical Review, the quarterly journal of the World Council of Churches, explores the teaching of ecumenism against the background of the shift of gravity of Christianity to the global South and the emergence of World Christianity as an academic field in its own right.

A “Go for Gender Justice” initiative was launched by the Protestant Church in Germany in Berlin on 1 February with calls for overcoming gender clichés and traditional role models. Germany’s “First Lady,” the judge Elke Büdenbender called on women and men to fight together for social change. Under the motto “Go for Gender Justice,” nine regional churches invited people to move together toward gender equality.

_{Image: Elke Büdenbender speaks at the launch of “Go for Gender Justice” by the Protestant Church in Germany, 1 February 2022 (Ulf Beck/EKD).}