On Thursday, April 16, 2026, church leaders and ecumenical partners gathered for the 2026 Taiwan Ecumenical Forum. The theme of the event, which guides presentations and conversations, is “The Right to Self-Determination and the Missionary Role of the Church,” Highlighting how these concepts intersect with ongoing social justice struggles worldwide.

The conversations were shaped by a concept note authored by Rev. Dr. Yang-en Chang, coordinator of the task group for the Taiwan Ecumenical Forum, which grounded the forum’s theme in the deep well of the Judeo-Christian prophetic tradition. “In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Hebrew prophets frequently called for justice, liberation, and the right of oppressed peoples to live in dignity and freedom (Isaiah 61:1-2; Luke 4.18-19). Liberation theology in modern Christianity has built upon this to argue for the self-determination of marginalized groups.” Further articulated the desire of the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan (PCT) to be in solidarity with regions and peoples who also seek the right to self-determination, including Myanmar, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Tibet, West Papua, Palestine, and Ukraine, as well as indigenous peoples worldwide. 

A keynote address for the forum was delivered by Rev. Philip Vinod Peacock, general secretary of the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC), who offered a compelling reframing of what self-determination means for the Dalit movement in South Asia — and, by extension, for marginalised communities globally.

Peacock said, “In most conventional usages, self-determination is framed as the right of a people to constitute themselves as a sovereign nation-state — to draw borders, fly a flag, and command a territory. The Dalit movement, for the most part, does not seek this. It does not aspire to carve out a new geography from the political map of South Asia. Rather, it mounts a far more radical challenge: the demand for the transformation of the social order itself. This distinction is not a concession to weakness; it is a conceptual contribution of the first order.”

Peacock shared that Christianity offered a theological framework for many Dalit converts, as Christ’s humanity refutes the logic of pollution and purity in the social hierarchy of the Caste system.  “A God who was born into the lowliest of circumstances and lay outside the systems of power, ultimately being killed by them, a table at which all were in principle equally welcome, and a community of faith that stood, at least in its best moments, against the hierarchies of the world. The practice of conversion in this context was not simply a change of creed; it was an act of exit from a symbolic universe that had designated one as subhuman, and an act of entry into a community that, however imperfectly, affirmed one’s dignity.”

In his final remarks, Peacock expressed the hope that Christianity brings to the Dalit community. “​​Through religion, they have claimed the right to inhabit a different symbolic universe, to refuse the cosmology that authorised their degradation and to enter communities of meaning organised around their own dignity and worth.”

The forum began with worship, followed by an introduction led by Rev. Dr. Jooseop Keum, general secretary of the Council for World Mission. Other keynote speakers on Thursday included Rev. Dr. Huang Po-Ho, director of the Academy for Contextual Theologies in Taiwan, and Prof. Rev. Upolu Lumā Vaai, vice chancellor of the Pasifika Communities University.

The discussion had an overarching vision of faith communities as spaces of radical affirmation, and transformation resonated throughout the forum’s wider discussions on what it means for the Church to accompany peoples in their quests for self-determination.