Made up of representatives from all eight WCC regions, the group met to review and preview its activities, immersed itself into the context in which they were meeting, and considered its action plan for the coming years. The group concluded with developing a plan of action to guide its activities until the next in-person meeting in 2026. As the proceedings explored and interrogated the mandate of the reference group, Dr Masiiwa Ragies Gunda, WCC programme executive for programmatic responses on overcoming racism, summarized the reference group as “the eyes and ears of the WCC in the regions, the heart and mind of the WCC through the expertise its members bring to the table, the arms and legs of the WCC through our active engagements in transformative activities in our communities, regions and workplaces.” The launch of the two booklets Anti-Racist Churches and Anti-Bias Churches was widely acknowledged and embraced by participants who were happy and grateful to receive copies of these resources. Both were acknowledged for being adaptable, transforming, and capacity enhancing. The meeting engaged in a process of intense listening when group members took turns sharing the manifestations of racism, xenophobia, casteism, and other forms of discrimination in the different regions where interpersonal and systemic forms of discrimination were highlighted, covering areas like climate vulnerability, access to health and food security, management and mitigation efforts in conflict zones. The increasing popularity of social and political rightwing movements and their populist anti-immigration rhetoric were flagged by the group as worrisome developments in the Global North. The persistence of colonial systems were spotlighted in the engagements and the legacy of using the Bible as a tool of discrimination and exclusion was also observed. These colonial and European Christian legacies were singled out as informing many of the current challenges revolving around colourism, racism, tribalism, economic exploitation, ethno-supremacism, ethno-nationalism, white saviourism and the current episodes of Chinese exploitation of Africa and Africans. In many instances across Africa, it was observed that racism and legacies of colonization were being trivialized. According to Rev. Dr Kenneth Mtata, WCC programme director of Public Witness and Diakonia, “many Africans have forgotten the pain of racism and colonization because what came after colonization is much more painful.” Informed by the magnitude of the economic impact of enslavement and colonization on Africa, Africans, people of African Descent, and other marginalized communities around the world, including the more than 200 million Dalits in South Asia, mainly in India, Brian Muyunga, All Africa Conference of Churches executive youth secretary and member of the WCC executive committee said: “I have never believed in the idea of reparations, but the experience in the dungeons has made me to rethink.” With this new perspective on historic harms, the reference group committed to vigorously promoting the retelling of the narratives of historic harms from the perspective of those who refused to die, support efforts towards the honouring of reparations to all communities suffering from historic harms, to robustly engage in the WCC-led decolonization and reparations agenda to both redress historic harms, overcome the legacies of enslavement and colonization in the present, and contribute to the reimagining of a future free of racism, xenophobia, casteism, and any other form of discrimination. In response to Jeremiah 6:13-14, Rev. Lydia Neshangwe, moderator of the United Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa, president of All Africa Conference of Churches, and a member of the reference group, challenged the group to avoid becoming a body of “incomplete activism,” which can be polarizing and ineffective. She called the group to embrace the full import of the Hebrew tsedek/mishpat, which signal righteousness, justice, and fairness, calling for the group’s work to be “justice work done in a righteous and fair manner.” The reference group ended by devising a plan of action, as well as making some recommendations to the WCC, among the critical recommendations being that the WCC consider adding its weight and voice to calls for the addition of an 18th Sustainable Development Goal, calling for the elimination of ethno-racial discrimination in the world. The group encouraged the WCC and member churches to embrace racial and equity audits of themselves to sustainably contribute to the overcoming of racism, xenophobia, casteism, and other forms of discrimination. The group encouraged all member churches to advocate inclusion of the true enslavement and colonization narratives that will debunk the current European-coached history that trivializes the full impact of these historic injustices. Finally, the reference group called for the WCC to appropriately commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Kairos document, a blueprint for anti-racism thinking in Africa during the upcoming central committee meeting in 2025. "WCC makes pilgrimage to Cape Coast and Elmina castles in Ghana" (WCC feature story, 12 December 2024) Learn more about the WCC work on overcoming Racism, Discrimination and Xenophobia WCC offers new anti-racist and anti-bias material for churches and communities | 
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