Spiritual Disaster Preparedness
So there's a task confronting us, those called by God to be disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ while citizens of the United States: When the next President takes the pulse of public will on this issue, what will our national evangelical witness look like?
The present champions of a nuclear weapons-free world are not naïve — on the contrary, many of them witnessed firsthand the worst evils of the last century in the same global conflagration that birthed the bomb. Nevertheless, they hope; in hoping, strive; in striving, exemplify courage.
The youth that fought WWII are now grown old, and will not likely live to see the world for which they now labor. Their example of enduring hope speaks well to why Christians can and should take our stand for a world beyond nuclear weapons. It is not because we seeds of resurrection are panicked by mortality, nor because we citizens of the kingdom are driven by national interest over righteousness, nor because we imagine that we can add an ounce of worth to the redemption performed on the Cross.
No: It is because we are experts at God-given rejoicing in the present for a world that has not yet arrived. So we are driven now by the future day when we wake to headlines that the last bomb has been consigned to history books and museum displays. We're no strangers to such preemptive joy, after all: it's the very thing that has fueled the church's testimony to life throughout history's death-filled days, and to a love that casts out fear — in this and every terrorizing time.
The Rev. Tyler Wigg Stevenson, a Baptist preacher, is director of the Biblical Security Covenant.
Copyright © 2008 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
Related Elsewhere:
This piece accompanies "A Merciful White Flash."
Biblicalsecurity.org has more on creating a nuclear weapons-free world.
Previous articles about Christians and nuclear weapons include:
What To Do About Nukes | You may not be as powerless as you think. (August 13, 2007)
The Middle East's Death Wish—and Ours | We say "everyone wants peace," but we also want to see our enemies destroyed. (July 14, 2006)
Star Trek Into Darkness
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Mark Smith
"There are mechanisms" to prevent post-disarmament rearmament. Like what? All nukes transferred to UN control? Dial back to 1963 and ask what else would have deterred the subjugation of Western Europe by the USSR? Certainly not a conventional WWIII supported by a war-weary USA to stop the Russkies. Insultingly implicit in many comments above is the asserted equivalence between favoring a strong defense--so we don't have war--with desiring war. The clerical imprimatur of the good reverend lends no additional weight to a woolly-headed fantasy that has recurred regularly since the 1950's. Trot out the Holy Grail disarmament enforcement mechanism for public inspection & then we'll talk. PS, I'd check the context of what the conservative luminaries said in endorsing this Pied Piper parade to nowhere.
Earl Click
You folks need to live in reality. This is an ignorant dream you have that is based on the false hope that all mankind share our common Christian values. They don't. Large parts of the world are trying to live out in real time the words we heard long ago from a relentless enemy. "We will bury you." The Bible itself says that wars will never end until the Lords return. Only traitors in the disguise of elected official's would ever agree to such insanity. They take a oath, which God expects them to keep, to protect our nation and way of life. Remember history and grow up.
Wayne Smith
I have been a Christian for over 50 years. I have watched the word "evangelical" change from a word that described the people the took the Gospel to the world into a description of a political demographic. That's what puts fear in my heart.