The Presbyterian Writers Guild (PWG) is seeking entries for its annual Jim Angell Award. The award has been presented each year since 1996 to the Presbyterian author of the best first book published during the previous calendar year.

Anti-Semitic incidents in Britain last year fell by 31 percent from the all-time high of 926 in 2009, but were the second-highest ever amid a generally increasing trend, according to a report by a Jewish community organization.

In Magdi Shnouda’s cafe in Cairo, pictures of Jesus and the saints hang on the shabby walls, and the men playing backgammon and dominoes are a mixture of Christians and Muslims.

Church educators across the country are being offered the opportunity to try the new Feasting on the Word Curriculum: Teaching the Revised Common Lectionary for free. Churches are encouraged to sign up for Sample Sunday, which takes place on March 20, 2011, by registering at feastingontheword.net/curriculum.

Attendance at the Baghdad church pastored by Archbishop Avak Asadourian of the Armenian Church of Iraq has declined by 85 percent in the last five years.

In twin plenaries Thursday (Feb. 17), the World Council of Churches (WCC) Central Committee took a hard look at whether it can adapt quickly enough to the rapidly changing ecumenical and interreligious realities in the world. If it cannot, one delegate noted, fixation on internal governance and institutional survival may “suck the life out of the ecumenical movement.”

Graduate study in peacemaking will be available for academic credit at the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation (IEPC), held May 17-23 in Kingston, Jamaica, and sponsored by the World Council of Churches. A course for seminarians and other graduate students will be offered on “Overcoming Violence: An Engagement with the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation.”

Junos Nayak’s family owns more than 10 acres of land in Gadaguda, a village in the Kandhamal district in eastern India, but his turmeric and rice fields have remained barren for the last two years.

The government commissioner charged with promoting “Gross National Happiness” in the tiny Buddhist nation of Bhutan said he was deeply dismayed by a recent study that found a majority of Bhutanese women think their husbands have the right to beat them.

In opening addresses to the World Council of Churches (WCC) central committee Feb. 16, top leaders of the world’s largest ecumenical body seized on the imporatnce of Jesus’ prayer for unity in John 17.