TWENTY-TWO YEARS after our founding in 2002, Ekklesia will be ceasing its work as a think-tank and a daily provider of news briefings after the week commencing 9 September 2024 – but we are pleased to say that its book publishing operation, a newsletter, and an informal network via social media will be maintained independently for the time being.
This has been a decision long in the making. Over the past few years we have had numerous conversations with friends and allies about the best way to continue the legacy of Ekklesia, which has sought to inject creative and transformative ideas into debates about beliefs, politics and ethics.
There was some hope that an academic institution or NGO might be in a position to continue the think-tank dimension of our work. At present that is not an option, but we are still open to approaches from interested parties. (Lack of resources and time are obviously a major factor in the current need to wind down the main part of our operation. But these are challenges for many others, too.)
Where next?
Our founding commitment was to radical peace-and-justice traditions within Christian thought and action. But we have also sought to work creatively with those of other faiths and with those of ‘good faith’ outside religion, which in its organised forms is too often part of the problem rather than part of the solution in our beautiful but fractured world.
Voices offering hopeful alternatives to the systems of injustice, war, economic and political domination and environmental destruction that still predominate in our world are needed more than ever now, we know. Those who have been involved with Ekklesia over the years will continue to be speaking out and acting, through the channels mentioned below and many others.
Archive, publishing and networking
This website (now in its fourth virtual incarnation) has been a major hub and gateway to our activities. From 9 September 2024 it will become a substantial online archive of the great majority of the material we published since 2006 in particular. It comprises some 30,000 pages, including all our reports, position papers, commentary, media and news briefing.
Ekklesia Publishing, which was set up in 2016 and has produced 15 books to date, will continue. We will be updating and revising its website. A new Substack newsletter, Illuminations, will start shortly, written by our current director, Simon Barrow, but with guest contributions. Other Ekklesia associates have similar plans with which we will keep you in touch. Those of you who have connected with us over the years will also be able to stay in touch informally via our social media channels on X/Twitter and Facebook, which will be rebranded Ekklesia Network.
All this information, plus links to a number of organisations and networks we have had a particular affinity and connection with over the years, will appear on the live front page of our archive site in September (with the exact same URL as this one). So we are not disappearing completely, and there are means of reflection, publishing and action still available which carry our inheritance forward.
Final events and book
Between now and summer next year, Ekklesia Publishing and the informal network will also be co-sponsoring a final few events to honour the work of Ekklesia in highlighting fresh, transformative approaches to peace, justice and sustainability in a challenging C21st. More information about these will follow.
Lastly, in 2025 Ekklesia Publishing will also be making available a collection of new essays, material from our work over the past two decades, and signposts for the future. This will be entitled Thinking Without Tanks: Beliefs, Politics and Ethics Reconsidered.
Huge thanks!
The only appropriate way to end this announcement is with a huge thank-you to all who have contributed to the activity, work and provocations of Ekklesia over the past 22 years, both paid and (mostly!) unpaid. Our founder, Jonathan Bartley, deserves particular mention, along with all our associates – past and present – plus our former COO, Virginia Moffatt, and administrator, Henrietta Cullinan. Our contributors number in the hundreds since 2002.
A very special thanks to Bob Carling, who has managed our web and publishing operations for a long time; to Jill Segger, who has written comment on a variety of topics and overseen editorial matters with real diligence; to Bernadette Meaden, who has also contributed comment on social justice and disability issues and provided the great majority of content for our news briefing service in recent years; and to Sean Reilly at CanMarket, for his expertise in handling website migrations. There are many others to be named too, and we will try to do that before we sign off. (In fact, we did).
If you are reading this, we could not have done it without you!
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Simon Barrow
Director, Ekklesia