The latest issue of Current Dialogue, the World Council of Churches (WCC) journal of interreligious dialogue, has been published, marking the 60th anniversary of Nostra aetate, the Second Vatican Council declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions.
Current Dialogue, image: WCC
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The thematic double issue (Volume 77, Numbers 3–4), titled “Sixty Years of Nostra Aetate: Key Challenges and Opportunities in Interreligious Dialogue Today,” brings together Christian voices from across ecclesial traditions to reflect on the legacy of the 1965 declaration and the urgent challenges facing interreligious dialogue.
In her foreword, Rev. Dr Kuzipa Nalwamba, WCC programme director for Unity, Mission, and Ecumenical Formation, describes Nostra aetate as a “concise but revolutionary document” that sent ripples across the entire Christian world, calling all Christians to reimagine their relationship with other religious traditions.
“In a world too often fractured by identity-based conflict and the weaponisation of religious difference, the call of Nostra aetate to dialogue and collaborate with members of other religions is more urgent than ever,” Nalwamba writes.
The articles trace the continuing journey started by Nostra aetate, bringing together voices from across Christian traditions and engaging urgent contemporary questions: Christian–Jewish relations, Catholic–Muslim dialogue in Indonesia, encounters among Christian, Hindu, and Muslim traditions in India, Christian witness and mission in plural contexts, reconciliation within Orthodox tradition, religious nationalism in the United States, and the role of young people, women, and other underrepresented voices in shaping the future of interreligious dialogue.
“This commemorative issue of Current Dialogue is both a tribute to the transformative legacy of Nostra aetate and a timely reflection on interreligious dialogue today, inviting us to ask what has changed, what remains contested, and what still calls for further theological and ecclesial reflection,” said the issue editor, Prof. Dr Angeliki Ziaka, WCC programme executive for Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation and professor at the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey.
Current Dialogue is published as a special issue of The Ecumenical Review. The issue is offered as a contribution to the WCC’s ongoing Pilgrimage of Justice, Reconciliation, and Unity.
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Current Dialogue – World Council of Churches’ journal on interreligious dialogue
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