Returning from a three-month sabbatical, the Revd Philip Brooks, United Reformed Church (URC) Secretary for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations, reflects on a recent trip to Germany.

The trip took place ahead of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall where 22 people from the URC will join in the four-day remembrance and celebrations, from 7-11 November, with the Evangelische Kirche der Pfalz (Protestant Churches of the Palatinate region of Germany).

The United Reformed Church (URC) has joined a coalition of faith institutions to announce its divestment from fossil fuels, as the Financing the Future summit – devoted to accelerating investment in a clean economy – gets underway in Cape Town.

Fossil fuel divestment now comes from institutions with £9 trillion in assets, institutions with assets of around £40 billion just five years ago.

According to The Global Catholic Climate Movement, Operation Noah, Greenfaith, and the Green Anglicans, faith institutions constitute the greatest number of entities contributing to the global divestment movement.

The leaders of six national Churches, including the United Reformed Church, have written to The Guardian about the Defence Security Exhibition International (DSEI) arms fair which opens in London today (10 September).

The Church leaders, from the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Methodists, and the Quakers, believe that the UK’s involvement in the promotion of weapons of war is in complete opposition to the building of peaceful, just and ecologically sustainable societies.