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Nuclear Heresy
Q: Reacting in part to recent missile tests by Iran and North Korea, President Obama and a unanimous UN Security Council last week endorsed a sweeping strategy to halt the spread of nuclear weapons and ultimately eliminate them. Is nuclear disarmament a religious issue? Is it a pro-life issue? Is support for nuclear disarmament a moral imperative? Should we pray for nuclear disarmament?
Nuclear weapons are not just an invitation to world suicide; they are the deepest possible offense to God, because they threaten the existence of all the life on earth created by God. In a Christian sense, nuclear weapons represent the ultimate heresy because their capacity for world-annihilation is a repudiation of the goodness of creation, and the goodness of God as creator. This strikes at the core of Christian faith in God as Creator.
The charge of heresy is more stark and confrontational than just saying that the rejection of nuclear weapons is a moral imperative. Certainly, there is a moral imperative to rid the world of nuclear weapons because of their destructive capacity.
The charge of heresy, however, raises the question of the faith imperative. Nuclear weapons confront the believer with a stark choice, the choice between trust in God, or trust in mutually assured destruction. Are you willing to bet the life of the world on your weapons systems, or on your faith in God?
Heresy is the most serious charge anyone can level at a person of faith. To be called a heretic means you have departed from the essentials of the faith; you have contradicted the core of the belief system itself. The heretic is normally cast out of the circle of the faithful.
Calling something a heresy can be uncomfortable, even unacceptable for many Christians, recalling times in the history of the church when dissent itself was considered heretical and heretics were burned for not agreeing with church doctrine. Some Christians were called heretics in the history of the church purely for dissenting from doctrines that many today now regard as having been both morally and socially wrong.
Does this mean, then, that nothing should be called a heresy, that nothing is essentially wrong? To me, such a view would mean that there are no essentials where the future of the faith itself is at stake. I believe that there are such essentials and the 20th century has several examples.
Apartheid is an instance of modern heresy. In the case of apartheid, the South African system of legalized racial discrimination, both the Lutheran World Federation (1977) and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (1982) declared it a heresy, and churches that supported it were suspended from membership. On the one hand, this was an extreme action on the part of these churches, but on the other hand, apartheid was an extreme wrong. These churches declared that apartheid was outside the confession of Christianity.
In the case of nuclear weapons, the Dutch Reformed Church and the Reformed Alliance of West Germany have declared them incompatible with true faith in God.
The reason many of these modern cases of heresy have a German origin or support is the German experience with Hitler. By 1934, Hitler's increasing control meant most of Germany had capitulated, including the churches. Some Christians continued to resist, but the church itself was increasingly taken over by the "German Christians," a group that affirmed Hitler as a new Messiah, accepted Nazism's anti-Semitism and was willing to follow the dictates of the Nazi Party.
It was largely in reaction to the excesses of the "German Christians" that another group, called the Confessing Church, was formed, chiefly out of the Lutheran and Reformed churches. This group wrote the Barmen Declaration at their initial synod in Barmen in May 1934.
The "Barmen Declaration" did not use the word "heresy" but it did talk about what is essential to faith, what must be confessed or one can no longer claim to be a Christian.
In these days when political and religious conservatives are throwing around charges of Nazism, it is well to remember the heroic stand of those Christians who actually did stand up to Nazism and the reason they did. It is well to remember that these same church confessional traditions followed their rejection of Nazism with a rejection of apartheid as a heresy and they did so at a time when many conservatives in the U.S. were supporting apartheid.
Christians must reject nuclear weapons as a heresy, following their lead, for the same reasons. Here's the essential truth: you cannot both confess Christ and then turn around place your ultimate security in nuclear weapons.
By
Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite
|
September 28, 2009; 6:54 PM ET
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Posted by: cyber-man | October 4, 2009 8:47 PM
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"Christians must reject nuclear weapons as a heresy, following their lead, for the same reasons. Here's the essential truth: you cannot both confess Christ and then turn around place your ultimate security in nuclear weapons."
I essentially agree, if one follows the fundamental Path of Jesus, that nuclear weapons are a 'heresy' that is contrary to the message of Christ.
But then it is not primarily individuals that are placing their ultimate security in nuclear weapons, but states and governments. Ways of life, cultures and societies are either ultimately depending on nuclear weapons as deterrent against threat, or are seeking them for deterrent or aggression.
If Christianity was a state religion, and America, say, became a theocracy, nuclear weapons would be maintained. The Path of Peace is for those who have no need or desire for War. Weapons are maintained by those that embrace war as a part of their Philosophy. Look at the essay by J M Reynolds this week as an example.
These are not Christians of the cloth of those Jesus took in. These are Christians that have adapted their own path to accommodate base and sublime. Or New and Old, if you wish.
We are unlikely to realize nuclear disarmament in our time, I believe. Far too chaotic and uncertain. But we must strive for cooperation and unity, and in that way may realize greater ends.
Posted by: justillthennow | October 2, 2009 3:48 PM
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This is an excellent article. My concern is the tragic quality nuclear weapons represent. An argument can be made for the development of nuclear weapons at the end of WWII, if not necessarily for their use.War led us to look for a weapon that would end the war without at the same time destroying our souls and ourselves. Yet in some profound sense we do not control nuclear weapons they control us. We tend to look for a technical fix rather than a moral solution - maybe thats because it is easier. We seem to be technical geniuses and moral midgets. Can we create a weapon so destructive we can't use it? Yes, I think we have. It is therefore a moral imperative to destroy the weapons. These weapons don't serve just ends even though Reinhold Niebuhr says order precedes justice, the likelihood that if even one of the weapons is used it would be so destructive that neither order nor justice could not be served. Underlying much of the debate is the belief that as Churchill stated perhaps peace will be the sturdy child of terror (i.e., nuclear deterrence). But of course many wars have been fought while at least five nations have had nuclear weapons. As Advocacy Director for Faithful Security, a national religious partnership on the nuclear weapons danger, it is important to convey to people what a different time we live in now, than during the Cold War. Does anyone believe that had al Qaeda had nuclear weapons on 9/11 that it wouldn't have used them?
Posted by: lpullen | October 2, 2009 3:26 PM
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Hi friends
There is a little question. Those who dropped the Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; were they Catholics or Protestants? Who will bell the Cat?
I love Jesus and Mary as mentioned in Quran.
Thanks
I am an Ahmadi peaceful Muslim
Posted by: paarsurrey | September 30, 2009 5:09 PM
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Less we not forget those who practiced heresy before us... For not them, the Church would not exist!
or have anything to do.
Posted by: backspace1 | September 30, 2009 8:04 AM
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One cannot level a formal charge of heresy unless a formal member of a church!
Minimal rights are afforded to said heretic.ie:
hearing and judgement by peers.
Please review church protocol and procedure for censure and heresy charges.
Posted by: backspace1 | September 30, 2009 7:51 AM
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Wow!
Dear S.B.T.:
What a Pretty-Mind! OR iS "IT"
a Beautifull-Mind?
Nice-a, Nice-a Vvvvverrrryyyyy Nnnnnyssssaaaa!