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2
Government
A World Without Nuclear Weapons
by
Tyler Wigg-Stevenson
But everything changed when people began to rally to the message of pious, evangelical Christians who held that slavery was categorically immoral. Then, as Shane Claiborne has said, impossibility was transformed into inevitability. In many situations, the difference between impossibility and possibility is not a categorical divide but a question of fidelity to a goal.
Achieving a nuclear weapons-free world tomorrow is actually, technically impossible. But our inability to do a thing instantly does not mean that it must be forever denied to us. An athlete beginning her training may not be able to run a race in a certain time. But as she trains, what was once impossible slowly becomes imaginable and then certain. She develops muscles and abilities that she did not previously have. Similarly, it may be impossible today to map the precise route to a world without nuclear weapons. But we know the first steps. For example, a recent news article cites Iran’s increasing inability to defend its own nuclear program in the face of recent American leadership on disarmament. Just so, as we move forward, straining our moral muscles, we may well discover that a way opens up that we were previously unable to see.
ALL WORK IS WITNESS
In sum, the details of our current situation give a particular clarity and linearity to the moral logic of nuclear weapons today:
Nuclear weapons are devices that unavoidably kill innocents.
Unlike the Cold War, we can no longer claim that we possess nuclear weapons to prevent their use: as outlined above, traditional deterrence is not only obsolete but the source of future proliferation leading to nuclear use.
The continued existence of nuclear weapons by any party will lead to the widespread death of innocents and is consequentially morally bankrupt.
In other words, the Bomb is both dangerous and immoral, full stop. This is the ground for our present opposition to these devices.
And, because Christ is Lord, we must never forget that evangelical engagement of nuclear weapons should be a spiritual struggle first, with secondary political implications, and not vice-versa, a political struggle with secondary spiritual implications. This is my final and most fervent plea, for two reasons.
The first is, quite simply, that the United States government does not acknowledge the Lordship of Christ. It is tempting to wish that Christian political engagement is as simple as preaching to the government, “Christ demands this, so you should do it.” But what does the government really care about the judgment of a Lord to whom it does not bend the knee?
No: if we’re really going to do this, we should speak to ourselves — to our churches, to our people, to our souls. Let convicted Christian citizens then render change in a government that belongs to them! But our witness should remind our congregations that the judgments of God are greater than those of any nation in which the people of God live.
The second reason that we need to maintain a spiritual focus is that our political engagement may well fail, or be too late. We do not know what will happen. This reminder that history is not entirely in our hands is a helpful and God-given humiliation of our ambitions, however wellintentioned they might be. And it is a reminder that the imperative of laboring in the vineyard is not contingent upon our mortally myopic evaluation of the nature or value of that labor’s efficacy. Witness is never in vain. We are called to be faithful — strategic, too, but first and finally, faithful. An inability to eradicate sin does not entail an acceptance of it.
So, whether or not we can ever abolish nuclear weapons — and I do believe we can — it is still our responsibility to renounce them. This is the single most important act that the church can take on the nuclear issue: the unequivocal, universal, and entirely public renunciation of nuclear weapons.
If we renounce these weapons, let’s give our words grit, a covenant requiring much of us — not some tepid bowl of moral tapioca that even the most toothless believer can gum and swallow with a smile. Let’s remember that our first job is to honor God by glorifying Christ crucified, and make our nuclear renunciation one in which nonbelievers might search, but not therein find, a sinful complicity that gives cause to disdain the Lord.
Here’s the pledge of conscience for the Two Futures Project that I propose for your consideration:
AS A MATTER OF CHRISTIAN CONVICTION, WE CHOOSE A WORLD FREE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS
WE BELIEVE
that we face two futures: a world without nuclear weapons or a world ruined by them.
WE PROCLAIM
that nuclear weapons today are unjustifiable theologically, politically, and militarily.
WE RENOUNCE
nuclear weapons as sin against God and neighbor.
WE REPENT
of apathy toward devices that cause indiscriminate destruction.
WE URGE
the American President’s leadership in fulfilling existing commitments toward global and complete nuclear disarmament.
WE PLEDGE
our support to the elimination of all nuclear weapons worldwide, to the glory of God.
Whatever the particular words, we must renounce nuclear weapons. For if the offense of a nuclear attack comes, let it not come by our indifference, or laziness, or failure to act, or, God forbid, our actions. If it comes — and it may come — let it come in the face of our unflinching proclamation: that the mushroom cloud rises under the canopy of heaven, not a blind and indifferent sky; it rises under the eye of a God who sees and who will repay.
Or — and here is another vision to close with, far more beautiful — let that dreadful day simply not come.
My first mentor referred often to a quote by George Washington. When the Continental Congress of 1787 sought compromise over principle, Washington remarked: “It is too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. But if, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God.”
3
The event is in the hand of God. But, brothers and sisters, the standard is ours.
Some day in our lifetimes, God willing, the sun will dawn over a world newly free of nuclear weapons — illuminating a world that for the first time in decades is freed from the shadow of atomic destruction.
May that day come soon. And let it come, if it comes, because we raised our standard under the eye of God: because we raised it and rallied to it and refused, in the sight of God, to let it fall.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Before reading this article, what was your general view of nuclear weapons?
2. Were you convinced that Christians should renounce the presence of nuclear weapons in our world? What was most convincing/ unconvincing?
3. The author suggests that there are similarities between the movement to abolish slavery and this movement to abolish nuclear weapons. Do you think this is a fair comparison? Why or why not?
4. The author cites “vocabulary and possibility” as two particularly Christian contributions to the nuclear issue. What else do you think that the Christian faith uniquely brings to this discussion?
5. How, if at all, do you see nuclear weapons relating to your faith and discipleship? Does this article inspire you to action in any way, and if so, how?
6. Should local communities of faith do anything to engage this issue? If so, what?
7. If you summarized this article to friends, how do you think they would react? Your family? Your church? How would you respond?
END NOTES
1
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
, Saturday, January 23, 1999.
2 Quoted in letter from Nancy Reagan to George Shultz, October 4, 2007.
3 As quoted by Gouverneur Morris: Max Farrand,
The Framing of the Constitution
(Beard Books, 2000), 66.
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Comments
james hayes
Slavery was intrinsically evil. A weapon, like an ax , is morally neutral.
I am not convinced that we could afford to disarm with little hope that all adversaries would actually disarm.
Bob Snodgrass
I certainly disagree with Mr. Wigg-Stevenson's assessment on the need to disarm nuclear arsenals. History seems to show that disarmament is naive, even reckless. That's the claim of Professor David Schaefer, who sums up the point better than I could...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123923509427103247.html
Comments are now closed
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