Search results

The World Council of Churches (WCC) welcomed the news on 11 October that the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Nihon Hidankyo.

Rev. Prof. Dr Fernando Enns, on behalf of the World Council of Churches (WCC), presented a prayer in an interfaith setting during the 7th Global Interreligious Conference on Article 9 of the Japanese Peace Constitution, held 9 March in Okinawa.

The National Christian Council in Japan, in a “Statement Regarding the Enactment of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,” expresses a “strong sense of disappointment that we have arrived at this point with the Japanese government neither approving nor ratifying” the treaty.

On 6 August, a “Joint Interfaith Statement on the 75th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki” was released, reaffirming the existential threat to humanity that nuclear weapons pose.

August 2020 will mark 75 years since the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki - attacks which devastated those cities and killed or injured several hundred thousands of people. Many more suffered for years afterwards, from having been exposed to the deadly radiation released into the air and water on those days.

Meeting the Hibakusha, survivors of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is humbling. Sharing their stories is a challenge. Travelling to Oslo in Norway on 9-10 December, more than 20 Hibakusha joined celebrations of ICAN receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. May we remember them well, with dignity and respect.

In an official ceremony on 10 December that reflected a lifetime of work for many peacemakers, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) executive director Beatrice Fihn joined the world in celebration but also sent a clear message: there is still a lot of work to do.

On the 72nd anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world can find hope in a new treaty, the text of which has been negotiated and agreed by a large majority of the world’s governments, to outlaw nuclear weapons.

This year 6 and 9 August mark the 71st anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two Japanese cities destroyed by atomic bombs with a combined death toll estimated at more than 225,000 people.

On the occasion of US President Barack Obama’s visit to the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 27 May, WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit sent greetings, noting that this is a time when signs of peace and justice are sorely needed.

When Stephen Sidorak speaks about “A Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace to Japan on a Matter of Life and Death” his voice rings with passion, commitment and regret along with a yearning that nuclear weapons must never be used in anger again.

Following the recent nuclear test conducted by North Korea, the WCC is calling on all parties involved in the current situation on the Korean peninsula – especially South Korea, North Korea, the USA, Japan and China – to “invest in initiatives to reduce tensions, to promote dialogue and to encourage negotiations for an end to the suspended state of war, and for peaceful co-existence on the Korean peninsula, rather than measures that increase the risk of catastrophic conflict“, according to WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit.

Some 200 people from Japanese churches and minority right networks as well as overseas partners, gathered for an international conference on minority issues and mission at the Korean YMCA in Tokyo.

Adebayo Anthony Kehinde leads an African group supporting ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Its interfaith campaign is especially significant on the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings in Japan.

The nuclear attack on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945 revealed the brutality and dangerous logic of war, money and power, according to an Indigenous Anglican bishop from Canada.

“The first thing that is required of us is to live the courage of our convictions. For the World Council of Churches, our conviction is that the world must be freed of nuclear weapons,” said the Rev. Dr Sang Chang, WCC president for Asia, in her address at the Nuclear Disarmament Symposium held in Hiroshima.

Seventy years after nuclear fireballs exploded over two Japanese cities, an ecumenical group of pilgrims has come to Hiroshima to listen to those who survived and renew the struggle against their own countries’ continued reliance on nuclear weapons.

As an ecumenical delegation to Japan participates in Hiroshima Day observances on the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing, the WCC has published a liturgical resource and invites churches around the world to join in prayer.

Bishop Dr Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, chair of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and a member of the church leaders’ pilgrimage to Japan on the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings, pressed the case for the Humanitarian Pledge against nuclear weapons at the Hiroshima Day rally on 6 August 2015.