As young theologians from Chiang Mai, Thailand connected online with their peers in Wadi El Natrun, Egypt, on 20 October, they collectively asked a difficult question: Which Jesus are we talking about?

Students from the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) Global Institute of Theology met with their counterparts in the World Council of Churches (WCC) Global Ecumenical Theological Institute (GETI) during the WCRC’s 27th General Council, being held in Chiang Mai, and during the lead-up to the WCC Sixth World Conference on Faith and Order in Wadi El Natrun. 

The inspiration for GETI reaches back to the World Alliance of Reformed Churches—now WCRC—General Council in 2004 in Accra, Ghana, where a visionary gathering of young theologians planted the first seeds of what would later become GETI. 

The WCRC continues this tradition through its Global Institute of Theology, and both programs provide a space where young and emerging theologians from all corners of the world encounter one another as companions on the same journey—sharing insights, wrestling with questions, and building lasting friendships that transcend the boundaries of denomination and nation.

No Ordinary Connection

Prof. Henry S. Kuo, dean of the WCRC Global Institute of Theology, opened the programme by noting that “today is an extraordinary collaboration—and I really hope this is the first of many more collaborations in the future.”

Prof. Dr Ani Ghazaryan Drissi, coordinator of GETI 2025, noted: “As we gather in 2025, let us remember that we are not in competition but rather in communion. Let us celebrate both institutes.” 

Equipping the Next Generation

Keynote speaker Dr Allan Boesak, a South African theologian, spoke of the importance of theological institutes.  

“There is almost nothing more important for the church than how we can equip the next generation of theologians in the world,” he said. “What does it mean when there are really powers, principalities, and forces, that behave as if they are Lord over your life?”

Boesak urged students, in their struggle for justice, not to disengage from the fact that Jesus is Lord. 

When it comes to the Nicene Creed, Boesak pointed out, there is no overt call for justice in the text. “I don’t see that concept of justice, that call for justice, that demand for justice,” he said, and one needs to ask if, 1700 years ago, the Council of Nicaea itself had any focus on justice. 

“There were bishops, a very privileged class in that society, called together by the emperor, living on the emperor’s largess while they were there,” he noted. “What about those who were not there?”

Boesak reflected that the most elemental thing about justice is the question of whose voice matters most. “Is it the voice of the powerful and the dominant?” he asked. “The church is not the voice of the voiceless. If the church cannot make room for the voiceless to speak for themselves, I don’t know how we can be the church.”

Confessing Jesus as Lord

If, as in the Nicene Creed, we confess Jesus as Lord, what does that mean when one is confronted by injustice? 

“You can have Nicaea and you can have all the wonderful confessions—but you still cannot have the Jesus that justifies slavery,” he said. “You must ask what the confession means in the very lives of people who are not like you? Which Jesus is it that you are talking about? In order for our souls to be redeemed, we have to ask that question.”

Pang Suk-yi, executive secretary for the Hong Kong Council of the Church of Christ in China, and a member of the WCC Commission on Education and Formation, responded to Boesak’s address, reflecting that today’s struggle for social justice is both spiritual and theological. 

If we don’t insist on wrestling with these difficult questions, Pang Suk-yi, said, “we perpetuate a form of injustice as much as the empire does.”