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1. Definition A council of churches is a voluntary association of separated Christian churches through which its members seek to manifest their fellowship with one another (Koinonia), to engage in common activities of witness and service, and to advance toward the ecumenical goal of greater visible unity. A council of churches can be distinguished from a temporary church coalition in that its members make a long-term commitment to one another. It can be distinguished from a clergy association or C…

The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. (NCCC) is the largest ecumenical organization in the United States. In 2002 its 36 member churches—Protestant, Orthodox, and Anglican—had a combined membership of more than 50 million Christians. 1. Origins The most obvious predecessor to the current NCCC was the Federal Council of Churches, formed in 1908 as a forum for consultation among its 33 member denominations and as an instrument for cooperative social service. The Federal Council also assisted, over the next four dec…

The term “local ecumenism” may be used with reference both to informal cooperative activities among congregations and dioceses and to the historic ecumenical concern for the more formal unity of “all in each place.” Local ecumenism may be distinguished (though not separated) from efforts to realize unity and shared mission at national, regional, and global levels. “The ecumenical movement is not alive,” said delegates to the Lund Conference on Faith and Order (1952), “unless it is local.” Nine years later, this conviction was amplified by the World C…

1. Sociology 1.1. Problem of Definition The word “peace” has many meanings, making a comprehensive definition impossible. Definitions aim to make a word univocal and tend to stress one specific content. Peace might be a nonwarring state in national relations, an absence of violence (Force, Violence, Nonviolence), a state of actualized social justice (Righteousness, Justice, 3), a psychological factor in persons or their relations with others, a state of law in a country or between countries, an organi…