“The time has come to launch a new model of ecumenical sharing of
theological resources in order to prepare world Christianity for the 21st
century,” said WCC general secretary the Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit in a
statement.
The library, which will initially contain nearly half a million articles,
represents “a key to social development, church development and the
integrity of the churches’ witness,” said the Rev. Dietrich Werner, of WCC’s
program on ecumenical theological education, at the launch at the WCC’s
headquarters in Geneva.
The library can be accessed at www.globethics.net/gtl and uses the
electronic platform of Globethics.net, a Geneva-based organization that
manages a digital library on ethics containing more than 650,000 documents.
GlobeTheoLib is available free of charge to registered users and will offer
resources in ecumenism, biblical and church studies and contextual
theologies, Werner said. He added that it will help promote the sharing of
theological perspectives between fast-growing churches in the global South
and established churches in the North.
It could become “the richest source for theological knowledge in our times,”
said Ivan Zhelev Dimitrov of the Conference of Orthodox Theological Schools.
GlobeTheoLib will accept documents in any language, but user languages are
currently English, French, German, and Spanish. There are plans to add
Greek, Russian, Indonesian, Chinese, Arabic and Portuguese, organizers said.
Christoph Stuckelberger, executive director of Globethics.net, said the
theological library offers “new possibilities for international networking,
exchange and digital sharing.”
