Contributing to a peaceful world through interfaith engagement
Conversations among people of different faith traditions and working together contribute to mutual understanding and trust between faith communities, social communities, and nations.
Faith-based organizations such as the LWF are increasingly recognized as vital partners in building sustainable societies and working for justice and peace, particularly by the United Nations; at the same time, there are tendencies to exclude religion from the public sphere.
Conversations among people of different faith traditions and working together contribute to mutual understanding and trust between faith communities, social communities, and nations.
We aim to equip our member churches and World Service country programs with tools and resources to engage, collaborate and contribute to peacebuilding in the local, national and global contexts.
Taking concrete steps to peacebuilding and interfaith engagement, we
- contribute Lutheran theological perspectives to interfaith conversations
- foster interfaith learning and interreligious literacy among communities and religious leaders
- equip member churches to engage in interreligious relations in their context
- support interfaith initiatives on advocacy and diakonia, to make an impact and build bridges between faith communities
We collaborate with ecumenical partners, interfaith actors, and religious leaders on human dignity, justice, and peace in our advocacy work. Working together, wherever possible and at all levels, we contribute to collective action, holding governments accountable and mobilizing people to uphold human dignity and advocate for the integrity of creation.
Participants in the LWF Peace Messenger Training gather at the start of the day Friday September 22, 2017 before touring Jerusalem. Photo: Ben Gray
The Action for Justice Forum for Interfaith and Peacebuilding is the space to convene LWF constituencies for joint discussions, strategizing, and engagement on policy, advocacy, and programmatic work. The forum includes member churches and, where appropriate, country programs and other relevant stakeholders. They work together to support advocacy at national, regional, and global levels to seek constructive ways to live and work with people of other faiths.
The objectives of the Action for Justice Forum for Interfaith and Peacebuilding are to
- Facilitate sharing and mutual learning among relevant stakeholders within and outside of the LWF;
- Provide a platform for mutual exchange, dialogue, learning, and shared understanding among LWF member churches and country programs;
- Provide a platform for joint LWF advocacy campaigns and projects;
- Provide a forum to convene LWF member churches, country programs, relevant regional or national institutions, inter-governmental and governmental actors, academic institutions, ecumenical and faith-based organizations, civil society actors to analyze contexts, and mapping needs to plan for Action for Justice themes strategically;
- Promote interactive and long-term partnership for advocacy among LWF member churches, country programs, and relevant stakeholders.
Three of the world’s leading Jewish, Islamic and Christian humanitarian organizations are working together to strengthen faith-based responses to the unprecedented global refugee crisis.
Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW), the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and HIAS are organizing a conference of grassroots faith leaders working to welcome refugees worldwide. “Welcoming the Stranger, Shaping the Future” will be co-hosted by the three organizations in Geneva on World Refugee Day, 20-21 June 2022.
More than 80 million people have now been forcibly displaced worldwide. 85 percent of refugees are currently hosted by developing countries.
Ahead of the conference, IRW, LWF and HIAS are working closely with other faith-based organizations to set up consultations with a broad group of grassroots faith communities in areas affected by mass displacement.
- The Nairobi-based Faith to Action Network will be hosting consultations with its extensive inter-faith membership across East and West Africa.
- The Network of Religious and Traditional Peacemakers, alongside Finn Church Aid (FCA), will host consultations for faith actors coming from South Asia and South East Asia, focusing on youth and the Sustainable Development Goals in displacement contexts.
- HIAS Europe and A World of Neighbours will carry out European-level consultations with young people from faith communities in refugee-hosting contexts across the continent.
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