CWM envisions mission as a digital networking, launches broadcast studio

GEM School grounds economic justice biblically

The first face-to-face GEM School held since 2019 has opened in Berlin, Germany, with a focus on ecological and feminist economics.

The Ecumenical School on Governance, Economics, and Management for an Economy of Life—GEM School—is a program within the New International Financial and Economic Architecture (NIFEA) project.

“The pandemic underlined yet again the need for a new economic and financial architecture that meets the needs of all people regardless of class, gender, or race and sustains the whole world of creation,” said Isabel Phiri, Deputy General Secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC).

“In particular we are highlighting feminist economics and ecological economics as they are particularly critical as we reflect on how to build a different financial and economic architecture,” said Athena Peralta, WCC Programme Executive for Economic and Ecological Justice.

The 30 participants from more than one dozen countries are ecumenical and church leaders, justice advocates, economic activists, ministers, and theological students.

“GEM School provides us with a concrete way to learn from each other together—theologians and lay, economic experts and social advocates, multi-generationally,” said Sivin Kit, Program Executive for Public Theology & Interreligious Relations with the Lutheran World Federation.

“The GEM School recognizes that our economics has to be contextual. A lot of our NIFEA work is rightly focused on providing a critique on our advocacy. We also need to see where these alternatives can take root and create change,” said Peter Cruchley, Mission Secretary for Mission Development with the Council for World Mission.

As part of its contextual focus, students visited the Brot für die Welt offices in Berlin, as well as with two women’s advocacy organizations, Women in Exile & Friends and Respect Berlin.

“Social holiness and personal holiness have to come together, without neglecting the hard work in the political arena to effect economic and social change,” said Bishop Rosemarie Wenner, Geneva Secretary of the World Methodist Council.