Mennonite Weekly Review

Twenty years after the Cold War’s nuclear shadow began to lift, the skies have never cleared. Evangelical Chris­tians and political leaders are watching the storm clouds again and reviving the goal of a world without nuclear weapons.

This is an improbable dream worth striving for.

A nuke-free world is virtually impossible in the sense that we can’t uninvent the bomb. Even if every nuclear device were de­stroyed, someone could always build another. That fact alone is probably enough to ensure that we’ll never see the day when every nuclear-armed country gives up its weapons of mass destruction.

But nuclear abolition is worth pursuing because setting an ambitious goal is the best way to make real progress, and also because it sets forth a vision that nonviolent Christians can affirm without reservation.

Nuclear pacifism — the belief that any use of nuclear weapons is immoral — may be gaining ground among U.S. evangelicals. The latest evidence of this was an address by Tyler Wigg-Stevenson, founder of the pro-abolition Two Futures Project, at a leadership forum hosted by the National Association of Evangelicals in Landover, Md., on Oct. 9.

Wigg-Stevenson, a Baptist minister, cites the biblical imperative against the killing of innocents as he makes the case for nuclear disarmament. This approach encourages a wide range of Christians to be nuclear pacifists, because the use of atomic weapons violates the just-war requirement of minimizing civilian casualties.

Pointing out that disarmament isn’t just a liberal vision, NAE President Leith Anderson noted that he “first heard the call for a world free of nuclear weapons from President Ronald Reagan” when he addressed the NAE more than 25 years ago.

Along with support in religious circles, nuclear disarmament has gained historic endorsement at the United Nations. The U.N. Security Council on Sept. 24 adopted a resolution affirming the goal of an atomic-weapons-free world. It urged all countries that have not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to do so. The treaty has limited the spread of nuclear weapons for decades.

President Obama has contributed to the momentum for nuclear arms control. Beginning with a speech in Prague this spring and continuing in talks with Russian President Demitri Medvedev this summer, he has signaled that the reduction of nuclear weapons will be a U.S. priority.

The United States and Russia, who together possess 95 percent of the world’s 23,000 nuclear weapons, are the world’s leading WMD owners.

To prove he is serious about ridding the world of nuclear weapons, the president should call for steep, unilateral cuts in the U.S. stockpile. With an arsenal of close to 10,000 warheads, the United States will lack credibility as a disarmament leader unless it scraps a large number of its own, as a start.

The president’s words have raised the world’s hopes for easing the nuclear threat. U.S. Christians have an opportunity to stand behind this vision of peace and urge that words become actions.