World Council of Churches

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a global fellowship of Christian churches founded in 1948 to promote Christian unity, common witness, and service. The WCC is not a church itself and does not exercise authority over its member churches. Rather, it provides a platform for dialogue, cooperation, and joint action among churches from different Christian traditions.

The WCC brings together more than 350 member churches from over 120 countries, representing hundreds of millions of Christians worldwide. Its membership includes Orthodox, Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Reformed, United, and other churches. Through its programmes and advocacy work, the WCC addresses issues such as peacebuilding, social justice, human rights, climate change, humanitarian action, and interreligious dialogue.

In recent years, the WCC has also become increasingly engaged in discussions on digital technologies, particularly in relation to ethics, human dignity, justice, and peace.

Ethical approach to technology

The WCC approaches digital technologies through a broader ethical and theological framework centred on human dignity, social justice, inclusion, accountability, and peace. Rather than treating technology as a purely technical matter, it examines how digital systems affect human relationships, communities, and societies.

This perspective is reflected in a series of statements and initiatives exploring the social and ethical implications of emerging technologies. In 2022, the WCC published A New Communications Paper for the 21st Century: A Vision of Digital Justice, which called for an inclusive and participatory approach to digital transformation and emphasised the importance of ensuring that digital technologies serve the common good. The organisation has also highlighted concerns regarding misinformation, hate speech online, exclusion, environmental impacts of digital technologies, and unequal access to digital resources.

The WCC further developed this perspective in its 2022 statement, New and Emerging Technologies, Ethical Challenges, which examines the implications of technologies associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, including artificial intelligence (AI), advanced robotics, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and digital communication platforms. While acknowledging their potential to improve human wellbeing, the statement warns that rapid technological change has outpaced ethical reflection and regulatory oversight, creating risks related to inequality, surveillance, misinformation, algorithmic bias, environmental sustainability, and the concentration of economic and political power.

The statement calls for technology to be governed in ways that uphold human dignity, justice, and the common good. It urges governments, churches, academia, civil society, and the private sector to engage in ethical reflection on emerging technologies, apply the precautionary principle where significant risks exist, strengthen public oversight, and ensure that technological innovation serves people rather than commercial or political interests. It also reiterates the WCC’s support for an international ban on fully autonomous weapons systems and for greater attention to digital justice, democratic participation, and the protection of fundamental rights in the digital age.

The WCC’s engagement with digital issues is closely linked to its wider work on justice, peace, human rights, and sustainable development.

Artificial intelligence governance and ethics

AI is an important area of the WCC’s digital engagement. The organisation has participated in international discussions on AI governance and has advocated approaches grounded in human rights, transparency, accountability, and equity.

The WCC has supported multistakeholder efforts to shape international AI governance and has contributed to discussions on the societal and ethical implications of AI systems. Particular attention has been given to the risks of bias, discrimination, misinformation, and the concentration of technological power.

The WCC has further elaborated its position on AI governance in its 2023 Statement on the Unregulated Development of Artificial Intelligence. While recognising AI’s potential to advance healthcare, education, environmental sustainability, and other areas of human wellbeing, the statement warns that the rapid development of increasingly powerful AI systems is being driven primarily by commercial competition rather than the common good. It highlights risks including algorithmic bias, misinformation, surveillance, widening inequalities, technological unemployment, and the concentration of power, while expressing particular concern about autonomous weapons systems and other security threats. The WCC calls for robust national and international regulatory frameworks, legal accountability for AI-related harms, international cooperation on AI governance, and ethical reflection to ensure that human dignity, justice, and environmental sustainability remain at the centre of technological development.

The WCC has been particularly active in advocating against the military use of AI and the development of lethal autonomous weapons systems. In a 2019 minute, the WCC Executive Committee called fully autonomous weapons fundamentally unethical and urged a pre-emptive international ban, arguing that decisions over life and death must never be delegated to machines or separated from meaningful human responsibility and accountability. 

The organisation has since reinforced this position through interfaith and civil society initiatives, including the 2021 Interfaith Statement on Killer Robots, which warned that autonomous weapons undermine human dignity, risk perpetuating algorithmic bias and discrimination, lower the threshold for armed conflict, and erode moral responsibility in the use of force. Across these initiatives, the WCC consistently calls for meaningful human control over weapons systems and for international legal frameworks to prohibit fully autonomous lethal weapons.

The WCC continues to promote these positions through international advocacy and multistakeholder engagement. In 2026, it participated in the third Responsible Artificial Intelligence in the Military Domain (REAIM) Summit, joining representatives from governments, international organisations, academia, industry, and civil society in discussions on the governance of military AI. As part of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, the WCC reiterated its call for a global regulatory framework to ensure meaningful human control over weapons systems and highlighted ethical concerns regarding human dignity, accountability, and the risks of digital dehumanisation. 

In June of the same year, the WCC signed a joint civil society statement calling on states and technology companies to halt the use of AI systems in military kill chains and to ensure that all military AI complies with international humanitarian and human rights law, reaffirming its long-standing support for legally binding international safeguards governing the use of AI in warfare.

The organisation has also taken steps to develop its own institutional approach to AI. In June 2025, the WCC Central Committee adopted the document Use of Artificial Intelligence in WCC Communications, establishing principles and guidelines for the responsible use of AI within the organisation. The document emphasises inclusion, accessibility, equality, respect, accountability, human oversight, transparency regarding AI-generated content, and the protection of personal data. It also notes risks associated with bias, inaccurate outputs, copyright concerns, and the misuse of AI-generated content.

Digital justice

Digital justice has emerged as a central concept in the WCC’s work on technology and society. The organisation uses the term to describe efforts to ensure that digital transformation promotes human dignity, participation, equity, and social justice rather than reinforcing existing inequalities.

The WCC collaborates closely with the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) and other partners on digital justice initiatives. Together, they have organised conferences, consultations, educational programmes, and publications examining issues such as digital rights, online participation, media justice, misinformation, and ethical approaches to technology. 

To support these efforts, the WCC and WACC co-published Digital Justice: A study and action guide, an educational resource designed for both groups and individuals. Through case studies, fast facts, and discussion questions, the guide explores critical ethical dilemmas, helping readers navigate online challenges such as hate speech, disinformation, and digital community building.

One notable initiative is the Just Digital e-learning programme, developed jointly by the WCC, WACC, and the Association of Protestant Churches and Missions in Germany (EMW). The course aims to help participants understand major digital policy issues and advocate for safer, fairer, and more inclusive online environments.

This commitment is further articulated in a manifesto for digital justice that makes an urgent call for a ‘transformative movement’. Drafted during an international symposium, the document addresses critical threats such as data surveillance, digital monopolies, and the spread of online hate. It advocates for a grassroots, faith-inspired response and comprehensive government policies to ensure that digital platforms respect human rights, protect democratic processes, and support environmental sustainability.

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