The following “Other Voices” piece ran in the Sunday, November 26, 2006 edition of the Ann Arbor News. It was written by ICPJ-members Jim Varani and Dick Brown.

The recent North Korean nuclear test has once again brought the issue of nuclear weapons to the public’s attention. Again, we face the question: Can the world truly be safe from nuclear war as long as nations possess these weapons? As members of the Disarmament Working Group at the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice (ICPJ), we believe that the time to end the nuclear weapons age is now. We feel, furthermore, that our religious communities should lead the way.

The dangers that nuclear weapons pose to humanity are vast, and far outweigh any military value these weapons may have. Among the dangers are:

Can you imagine where we might be if the financial and human efforts spent advancing nuclear weapons technology over the past 60 years had been spent in pursuit of alternative energy sources, eradicating global diseases, preserving the environment or ending global poverty?

Religious communities should lead the way to nuclear disarmament. There are numerous religious traditions with varied and diverse spiritual beliefs. People see the Divine very differently. Nevertheless, virtually all faith traditions have, at their core, a respect for all human life and an understanding that we are one human family. Opposition to nuclear weapons reflects that fact and the fundamental belief that mass murder is always immoral. For this reason, if no other, our religious communities should lead the way to nuclear disarmament.

Religious support for nuclear disarmament also has a practical side. As mainstream organizations, religious communities represent a large cross-section of the population. When religious groups endorse an idea, it gets the attention of government leaders. Furthermore, religious communities can link their voices to magnify effect. This can be within a faith community or as an interfaith movement. Finally, most faith groups are worldwide organizations. Any successful nuclear disarmament effort must be international in scope.

We envision a time when the leaders of our various religious organizations, pressed by the membership in each religious group, link their opposition to nuclear weapons. Indeed, already the national and international offices of most of our religious communities have stated in clear and unambiguous terms their opposition to the continued presence of these weapons of mass destruction.

All it takes is a quick online search of “nuclear weapons” and the name of a religious organization to turn up the very elegant statements produced by the leaders of our religious groups. Many of these statements were, in fact, written during the Cold War when there was, in many people’s minds, at least a rationale for nuclear deterrence. While the leadership in various religious denominations have spoken out against nuclear weapons, their continued efforts on behalf of nuclear disarmament depend on support from individuals in their congregations.

Nuclear disarmament is an achievable goal. Nuclear weapons have been with us for so long that disarmament seems like an impossible goal. The world faces many problems. Our view at ICPJ is that many of these will, ultimately, turn out to be more intractable than divesting ourselves from nuclear weapons. If nuclear weapons disappeared tomorrow, how many of us (outside of the nuclear weapons industry) would be directly impacted in a negative way? What’s more, if we were successful in addressing this issue, it might provide the optimism that humanity needs to tackle other global problems.

There is value in different religious communities working together to address a common problem, regardless of what that problem is. All too often, our religions have been co-opted for the spread of disharmony. Wouldn’t it be great to find that we can work together as members of different faith communities in the effort of solving a common problem?

We are not naive. We do not expect nuclear weapons to disappear quickly or all at once. On the other hand, we believe that international nuclear disarmament is an achievable and necessary goal. To achieve this goal, we must start now. If you agree with these sentiments, we ask you to join with individuals from other local congregations in support of ICPJ’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Please call the Interfaith office at 734-663-1870 or visit us at our online at disarmament.icpj.net to see how you and your congregations can be part of this grass roots effort in support of international nuclear disarmament.

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