Thoughts on faith, culture, and public life.
The sudden death of Neville George Callam on 16 August marks the passing of a singular figure who significantly reshaped global Baptist self-understanding and contributed to contemporary ecumenical theology. As General Secretary of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) from 2007 to 2017, he guided the principal global Baptist body through institutional transition, helping to reimagine …
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St. Boniface Church in Frankfurt, Germany, consecrated in 1926. Designed by Martin Weber, it drew both praise and criticism for the novelty of its expressionist architecture. The concept of double consciousness, developed by the African American scholar W. E. B. Du Bois in The Souls of Black Folk (1903), has become influential in modern social thought. Du Bois described …
The oldest existing structure in Lae, Papua New Guines is the St Andrew’s Lutheran Church in the suburb of Ampo, erected in 1933. Photo: Malum Nalu, 2021. Papua New Guinea (PNG) presents one of the world's most remarkable contexts for Christian ecumenism. Home to more than 800 living languages and immense cultural diversity, it is …
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The Ecumenical Center, World Council of Churches, Geneva, as it looked in 1970 (lower half of photograph). Ecumenism is a movement that seeks to foster greater unity, reconciliation, and cooperation among Christians. The term derives from the Greek word oikoumene (“the whole inhabited world”) and reflects Jesus' prayer that his followers "may all be one" (John 17:21). …
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Wahroonga Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Sydney, home of the flagship congregation, South Pacific Division. Some Christian communities decline formal membership of ecumenical organisations, although their reasons differ. The Seventh-Day Adventist Church, for example, carefully distinguishes between cooperation and institutional membership when it comes to relations with other churches. Adventists regularly collaborate with other denominations in education, …
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