Jenan Taylor
25 June 2024
Christians have been urged to embrace unity to address justice issues, including climate change and gendered violence, at a Victorian Council of Churches public gathering.
Attendees heard how ecumenism offered opportunities for hope and love in a fractured world.
Speaker World Council of Churches general secretary the Reverend Dr Jerry Pillay said it was only through unity that peace could flourish in the world.
He said we were living in a context in which the world was broken by sinfulness and death, and in which communities were experiencing multiple crises.
Dr Pillay said accelerating climate change, rising economic inequality and growing human rights violations were some of the most pressing issues within this polycrisis.
He said these issues gave Christians opportunities to become peacemakers.
Dr Pillay said this was important because Christian communities had a responsibility to address such injustices, hold up hope, and work together.
Read more: World Council of Churches leader to share unity insights during visit
He spoke of how South Africans of many faith backgrounds had rallied together to overcome the repressive Apartheid regime, to illustrate why unity and justice were inseparable.
“It was only through unity that Christians can find solutions that speak of justice,” Dr Pillay said.
Attendee Salvation Army Major Karen Elkington said she was struck by the similarities between Dr Pillay’s description of international problems and what Australians were dealing with.
Major Elkington said deep interfaith engagement was particularly challenging at present in the local context.
She said Dr Pillay’s reference to how South Africans worked together to overcome repression resonated with her.
Major Elkington said his encouragement to work together collaboratively, spoke of collaborating with other Christians as well as with people of other faiths.
She said it was a reminder that people were so much stronger and better when they worked together.
Major Elkington said it told her it was important that Christians ought to focus on reaching out to many others if they were to be upholders of peace.
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