The governing body of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) has approved a statement that prepares for a significant action of reconciliation with churches of the Mennonite and Anabaptist families, apologising for past persecution.

World Council of Churches General Secretary Samuel Kobia says new Lutheran World Federation leader Martin Junge will champion lively church partnership and wider human solidarities.

The governing body of the Lutheran World Federation has decided to delay voting on the election of a new General Secretary for the LWF, which was scheduled for 22 October 2009. The LWF Council meeting is taking place near Geneva, Switzerland.

The main governing body of the Lutheran World Federation began a meeting in Geneva on 22 October at which a successor to the current LWF general secretary is scheduled to be elected in a closed-door meeting.

US President Barack Obama's Nobel Prize should inspire the young to be "bridge builders for understanding and reconciliation", says the head of the Lutheran World Federation.

Renounce Islamophobia, the general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation has urged world religious leaders at an inter-religious congress held in Kazakhstan.

The actions of a group of German church members in 1934 to resist the Nazi regime still serve as a powerful model for churches today according to the head of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, But there is a dark side to the story, too.

Theologians from across the globe have been gathering in Augsburg for a consultation of Lutheran churches – the third largest worldwide Christian confession after the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

The combined membership in churches of the Lutheran World Federation rose by 141,792 in 2008 to reach a global total just under 68.5 million - but churches in Europe and North America again experienced decline.

People in the poorest countries are being forced into poverty by having to repay hundreds of millions of dollars of illegitimate loans from wealthy Western countries to greedy dictators, an international conference has heard.