This past Sunday was “Just Peace Sunday” throughout the United Church of Christ. It is celebrated on the Sunday prior to the United Nations’ International Day of Peace, which is observed on Sept. 21. The UN opens its proceedings with prayers for peace. For an institution born in the wake of two world wars, this makes perfect sense.
If you are like me, you might worry about the real possibility of an intentional or unintentional nuclear war. As Russia faces real hardships at home and military setbacks in theater because of the war it started with Ukraine, some in their government have called for the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
With testosterone-obsessed leaders the world over, miscalculations are an ever-increasing possibility. As they will hide in the safety of their reinforced, well-stocked bunkers, the rest of the world’s people will suffer the consequences of their nuclear bravado. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The choice is not between violence and nonviolence, but between nonviolence and nonexistence.” This rational fear is why we must pray for peace, because once that threshold is crossed, “nonexistence” becomes a real possibility. And so, this past Sunday we prayed for a just peace.
Prayers, however, are not enough. The faithful are called to pray and also to do. Switching gears for just a moment, the world had been warned about the dire consequences of human-caused climate change for decades. We knew that storms, floods, extinctions, fires, heatwaves and droughts would grow more frequent and destructive. We saw this catastrophe coming, but we did little to stop it.
I read recently about the need to reduce water usage from the Colorado River because of an ongoing drought. We could have acted more forthrightly to protect our environment if we had the courage and conviction. Now we must face the consequences for imagining this is nothing but the fickleness of a mythical Mother Nature. Prayers after natural disasters are cathartic and proper, but taking concrete steps to prevent them are faith in action.
Returning now to the topic of nuclear conflict, we have realized the possibility of causing our own “nonexistence” ever since the first moment of the nuclear age. J. Robert Oppenheimer admitted to thinking about this Hindu phrase in those extraordinary moments during and after the Trinity atomic bomb test: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
There are also biblical texts that some Christians love to quote that expect a divinely ordained catastrophic end to all of God’s good creation. The onset of nuclear annihilation is imagined as the precursor to Jesus’ Parousia (second coming). Admittedly, there are apocalyptic nightmares in the New Testament, but I follow the lead of the theologian Hans Kung, who argues that the end-time accounts should be read like the biblical creation accounts. Neither pretend to be historically accurate. I believe this is consistent with Kung’s position as expressed in “On Being a Christian,” where he states, “The face [God] showed in Jesus, is really [God’s] true and single face.” And yet, some Christians continue to make predictions about a second coming because they seem unsatisfied with the first coming. However, time and time again since the very pages of the Bible, these predictions have proved false.
Even more convincing than the accumulation of failed predictions are the repeated examples of a compassionate and loving God lived in Jesus. I’m afraid that we persist with the second Jesus because we are not willing to do the hard work of imitating the first Jesus.
We have failed to address the very real danger of self-inflicted nuclear conflagration. And second Jesus is not the remedy.
Therefore, following the prayers offered on Just Peace Sunday and the International Day of Peace, you are invited to hear and hopefully respond to Dr. Ira Helfand’s address, titled “The Growing Threat of Nuclear War: What We Must Do to Prevent It.” Helfand is a member of the International Steering Group of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017.
Helfand will speak at the First Congregational Church of Sunderland on Monday, Sept. 28, at 7 p.m. When he speaks about what we must do to prevent nuclear war, this will be how the faithful can move from prayer to action. We cannot afford to be nonchalant. Quite literally, if we are, “nonexistence” becomes a real possibility. This is why Faith Matters.
The First Congregational Church of Sunderland’s Sunday services begin at 11 a.m. The church’s website, Facebook and Instagram pages are found under First Congregational Church of Sunderland. To reach the Rev. Randy Calvo, email randyc1897@gmail.com.