Wednesday, July 2, 2025

WCC NEWS: Digital justice will be front-and-center at world information summit in Geneva

Faith-based groups, collaborating with their partners, including the World Council of Churches, will be advocating for digital justice at the “World Summit on Information Society +20,” to be hosted by the International Telecommunication Union from 7-11 July in Geneva. 
Photo: Albin Hillert/WCC
02 July 2025

The World Association for Christian Communication is sending a 7-member delegation of staff and national partners from the Global South. In collaboration with international civil society organizations, the delegation will advocate for a fundamental shift in digital governance – a new digital paradigm rooted in communication rights, with digital justice at the center.

The upcoming event marks 20 years since the original two-phase World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Government representatives and stakeholders from around the world will gather to review progress on original outcomes and actions from 2003 and 2005, while discussing the future of digital governance and the Internet Governance Forum.

“The current digital system has failed to deliver on the promises of WSIS,” said Philip Lee, World Association for Christian Communication general secretary. “Instead of bridging divides, we've seen growing inequality. Instead of democratizing information, we've witnessed the concentration of digital power in the hands of a few corporations.” 

Twenty years on, a new paradigm is needed, added Lee—one that prioritizes public interest over private profit. “It's time for a fundamental transformation that puts people and communities at the centre of digital governance,” he said.

Marianne Ejdersten, WCC director of communication, noted that digital technologies have already transformed the world for many of us in all the places we live and work. 

“While these advances do present challenges, they also present communicators with the tools they need to do their jobs even more effectively,” she said. “These technologies offer new ways to communicate, inform, and advocate for human dignity and rights.”

The WCC central committee, which convened 18-24 June in Johannesburg, South Africa, approved the paper “Use of AI in WCC Communications” as a guide and starting point for implementing and monitoring the work of WCC communications until the WCC 12th Assembly, with a mid-term evaluation in 2027 to review progress. 

“The WSIS is one important arena to study the development worldwide and listen to partners,” said Ejdersten. 

World Association for Christian Communication partners that will be highlighted during the event include the Sulá Batsú Cooperative in Costa Rica; Computer Professionals Union in the Philippines; and Gender and Media Connect in Zimbabwe.

On 8 July, the World Council of Churches and the World Association for Christian Communication will cohost a community gathering and reception at the Ecumenical Centre with a focus on local and global voices for digital justice.
 

Learn more about The World Association for Christian Communication (WACC)
 

Digital Justice Guide

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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 356 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 580 million Christians in over 120 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay from the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa.

Media contact: +41 79 507 6363; www.oikoumene.org/press
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Tuesday, July 1, 2025

In a letter to the Church, the Rev. Jihyun Oh says the PC(USA) will continue to stand with and for the most vulnerable among us

Dear Siblings in Christ Jesus and Fellow Disciples of our Crucified and Risen Lord,

Scripture reminds us that as Christ Jesus journeyed to the cross, he was also entrusting his earthly ministry to his disciples. Failing to understand, the disciples found themselves arguing about who would be greatest. To this, Jesus says, “The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted” (Matthew 23:11–12).

Image
Rev. Jihyun Oh cropped
The Rev. Jihyun Oh

This is the heart of leadership, especially for any who would claim to be “Christian” — to serve others instead of insisting on one’s own greatness, to lift up others instead of pushing them down, to show honor to the least instead of denigrating their humanity, to use one’s power and authority to work toward the wholeness of God’s beloved world instead of harming those who are most vulnerable in society.

We find ourselves in a nation in which leaders who purport to be Christian are attacking those who preach the mercy and love of Christ Jesus, arresting those who pray for justice, and using their position of leadership to harm the most vulnerable and to enrich themselves and their friends and allies by impoverishing those who have much less. Instead of emulating Christ’s earthly ministry of justice and love that brought God’s reign of wholeness and peace, these leaders seek to create a society that is marked by fracture and violence, a society in which power matters more than truth, winning more than communion and the good of the whole. Instead of working for a world in which strangers and foreigners can become neighbors, the weak and sick are protected, and the young and lonely are embraced, they build up dividing walls of hostility, threaten the vulnerable, and ridicule the marginalized. This is not Christian. This is not Christian leadership.

As the Co-Moderators of the 226th General Assembly and I wrote in December, as a Christian, Reformed, Presbyterian denomination, we as the PC(USA) will be a church for this time and place as God calls us to be. And we will act in accordance with our biblical and theological values that have also guided the actions of our General Assemblies, both PC(USA) and our predecessor denominations, in the discernment of our policies.

We will continue to stand with and for the most vulnerable in our society, whether that is because of status, identity, ability, resources, or any other factor; all bear the image of God. In our common life as a denomination, we will continue to pursue representation and full participation of all in the life of our denomination as we continue living into unity in our diversity. We will continue to stand with and for LGBTQIA+ siblings and communities and act to resist efforts to denigrate or harm them, or exclude them from the promise of the fullness of life.

We will work toward the day of God’s wholeness when all tears are wiped away, weapons are hammered into plowshares, hunger and violence are no more, Earth and all that inhabit it are restored, and God’s love and justice reign.

As Reformed Christians, our Sovereign God calls us to involvement in the world instead of being apart from it. And our involvement should be more than words. The Church’s call is to follow Christ, “entrusting itself to God alone, even at the risk of losing its life” [PC(USA) Book of Order, F-1.0301].

As Presbyterians, the Lord of our conscience calls us to stand up against the abuse of power and authority, especially when it is done in the name of Christ but not in the image and likeness of Christ and his earthly ministry.

Our God calls us and our cloud of witnesses calls out to us and strengthens us by their witness to the love and justice of Christ Jesus in the world.

Taking a stand against the rise of the Nazi party, the Confessing Church movement in Germany drafted the 1934 Theological Declaration of Barmen, asserting that Christ alone is Lord of the church and Sovereign of the world: “Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death” [PC(USA) Book of Confessions, 8.11].

Our God calls us and also sends us.

God sends the Church to work for justice in the world: exercising its power for the common good; dealing honestly in personal and public spheres; seeking dignity and freedom for all people; welcoming strangers in the land; promoting justice and fairness in the law; overcoming disparities between rich and poor; bearing witness against systems of violence and oppression; and redressing wrongs against individuals, groups, and peoples [PC(USA) Book of Order, W-5.0303].

So many in the church, in faithful discipleship to Jesus Christ, have been working for and toward God’s justice and love in the world. In the coming weeks and months, more will be shared about what Presbyterians are doing and can join to do.

Romans 12:9-16, 21 reminds us:

9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.

21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Let us not despair even as we grieve the brokenness and the pain we witness. Let us not lose heart. Let our discipleship be a faithful witness to what it means to be “Christian” in this time. May it be so for all of us.

Learn more:

General Assembly Committee on Representation

Advocacy Committee for Women and Gender Justice

Advocacy Committee for LGBTQIA+ Equity (ACQ+E)

The Rev. Jihyun Oh is Stated Clerk of the General Assembly and Executive Director of the Interim Unified Agency.

MLP July 2025 Newsletter!

WCC NEWS: Digital justice will be front-and-center at world information summit in Geneva

Faith-based groups, collaborating with their partners, including the World Council of Churches, will be advocating for digital justice at th...