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People of Faith Call on Congress to Pass Legislation to Prevent Nuclear First Strike
Holding to our core religious convictions that nuclear weapons are a threat to what God has created, we call on the United States Congress to immediately pass the bill introduced by Senator Ed Markey and Rep. Ted Lieu that would require congressional approval before any president could launch a nuclear first strike. Please add your name.
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People of Faith Call on Congress to Pass Legislation to Prevent President Trump from Launching a Nuclear First Strike
Dear friends,
Nuclear weapons pose a grave danger to the integrity of God’s creation and to the very future of life on earth.
As people of diverse faiths, we are opposed to the use of nuclear weapons and we affirm our opposition even to the threat to use such weapons as an insult to God as creator and sustainer of all life on earth.
We reject religious arguments that risk provoking nuclear escalation and thus we oppose statements of religious leaders such as Texas Evangelical Robert Jeffress that “God has given Trump authority to take out Kim Jong Un" as dangerously provocative.
Pre-emptive attack, especially with nuclear weapons, has been rejected over and over by countless believers, religious leaders, and whole religious organizations. They have equally proclaimed a resounding “NO!” to nuclearism in all its forms, both religious and secular.
Holding to our core religious convictions that nuclear weapons are a threat to what God has created, we call on the United States Congress to immediately pass the bill introduced by Senator Ed Markey and Rep. Ted Lieu that would require congressional approval before any president could launch a nuclear first strike.
The recent provocative Tweet by President Trump that North Korea will be “met with fire and fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before” if it does not stop threatening the United States, makes taking legislative action to provide congressional oversight of first-strike nuclear capability ever more urgent.
The world has managed even very violent conflicts after 1945 without ever resorting to using nuclear weapons again. The risk of planetary catastrophe, deft and sustained nuclear diplomacy and the moral voices of the world's faithful have actually, up until the present moment, succeeded in reducing the number of nuclear armed nations and the threat of nuclear war.
The diverse faiths of the world value the earth and many regard protecting what God has created as a moral imperative.
We urge Congress to act without delay to pass no-first strike presidential authority for using nuclear weapons.
Sincerely,
Rev. Dr. Susan Thistlethwaite
Professor of Theology
Chicago Theological Seminary
Rev. Dr. Chuck Currie
Director, Center for Peace and Spirituality
University Chaplain
Pacific University
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