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Among the Intellectualoids
Religiously Opposing Nukes and Human Reality
Every anti-nuker was welcome at Riverside Church’s convo last weekend — even Wiccans.
A long battery of leftist groups hosted a primarily anti-nuke “For Peace and Human Needs Disarm Now!” summit at famously liberal Riverside Church in New York this past weekend, featuring the United Nations General Secretary. It concluded with an Interfaith Convocation for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons at the Church Center to the United Nations, a United Methodist outpost across the street from the UN complex.
Headlining the anti-nuke religious rally was Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori, along with National Council of Churches chief Michael Kinnamon. But the jamboree was fully inclusive, with its brochure boasting of “representatives from the Baha’i, Buddhist, Christian, Confucian, Hindu, Humanist, Indigenous, Jain, Jewish, Muslim, Shinto, Sikh, Taoist, Unitarian Universalist, Wiccan, and Zoroastrian communities.” Indeed, “ALL are welcome,” it promised, repeating the common mantra of ardent religious inclusivists, for whom diversity is divine. Did a Wiccan warlock share the podium with the Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop? It’s not clear, though full interfaith collaboration was promised.
The summit and rally were to warm up anti-nuke religious activists prior to the United Nation’s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference starting May 4 in New York. “It’s a very important witness by many, many faith communities from around the globe to the difficulty and the problem of nuclear weapons,” blandly noted Bishop Schori, in a report by her denomination’s news service. “People have gathered here in advance of the U.N. meetings this coming week to express their concern and to call for an end to the possibility of nuclear war.”
Embodying a Religious Left preference for sentiment and good intentions over cohesive policy, Schori evidently told the religious peacemakers at the Church Center to the United Nations: “It will take the peacemaking of entire communities to abolish nuclear weapons.” She added: “We must share in that work together, and we have an opportunity — each one of us — to enter in today. Thanks be to God.” The National Council of Churches (NCC) chief also chimed in: “We long for a day when nuclear weapons are removed from the face of the earth.”
Having mostly abandoned the traditional Christian transcendent notions of winning lost souls and spiritual warfare, liberal religionists equate the church’s mission with campaigns for banning various objects or pathologies through legislation or treaty. Liberal religionists also generally prefer speaking universally rather than to particulars. So Bishop Schori will campaign against nuclear weapons in general, as though the weapons themselves were the originators of evil, but she will not say much if anything about Iran’s or North Korea’s nuclear initiatives. And certainly she will not harshly criticize the radical Islam that guides Iran’s theocratic mullah’s or North Korea’s version of police state communism.
Actually acknowledging human evil and the universal need for personal redemption is difficult for liberal religionists, who do not much like Christian and Jewish teachings about humanity’s fall from grace. For liberal religionists, God’s Kingdom can be achieved through another round of political agitation and resistance to American and Western dominance. “After I read that the U.S. is the only country in the world to have dropped a nuclear weapon, I felt it was my responsibility as a U.S. citizen to come,” explained one activist to the Episcopal News Service. For the Religious Left, the U.S. atomic strike on militarist Japan 65 years ago is more mobilizing than what Iran or North Korea may do tomorrow. And while critiquing Western political and economic systems as root causes of human suffering is certainly acceptable, pointing at non-Western depravities largely is not.
“We mourn and remember,” read one prayer at the interfaith anti-nuke convo, with Hiroshima and Nagasaki clearly in mind. “We remember the tragedy, the loss, and the pain of our actions. We remember those dark clouds we created that took the breath of life. You have provided us with abilities to create; Yet we have used them to undo. We have fashioned swords of mass destruction and fallen upon them. We have used our collective abilities for suicide…”
Another litany was more specific: “May we remember and mourn; Those who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Those who use their gifts to create weapons of mass destruction; Those who have died of cancer and disease from exposure to nuclear tests; Those who today suffer from these diseases and those not yet born who will; Those islands that were destroyed in nuclear weapons tests; Those who would sow fear by threatening to use nuclear weapons; Those who fund new generations of weaponry; Those who profit from the manufacture of nuclear weapons.”
This litany does also cryptically mourn “when world leaders threaten to use nuclear weapons in war,” and “when we hear hateful speech and do not object.” Could this refer to the Iranian president? Maybe, but if so, then he is merely one object of concern amid a larger focus on primarily Western powers, mainly the U.S., whose disarmament is the religious activists chief objective.
The religious convo’s statement of purpose condemned the “the criminal atomic bombings of Japan by the United States,” and described nuclear weapons as just one cataclysmic global threat, along with Global Warming and poverty, both of which by implication are also Western generated. Anti-Western themes also proliferated throughout the summit’s workshops, which opposed the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, NATO, peaceful nuclear energy, and anti-missile defenses.
This final emphasis indicates this anti-nuke crowd prefers sweeping utopian plans to abolish all nuclear weapons, rather than more realistic, incremental steps towards obsolescence. Pursuing utopia is more appealing at surreal places like Riverside Church and the United Methodist Center at the UN, where the realities of fallen humanity and their geopolitical implications are most unwelcome strangers.
About the Author
Mark Tooley is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C. and author of Methodism and Politics in the Twentieth Century. You can follow him on Twitter @markdtooley.
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Pingback| 5.6.10 @ 6:20AM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : Religiously Opposing Nukes and Human links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Brian Mc| 5.6.10 @ 7:32AM
The key here, once more, is that all-encompassing search for a socialist utopia. Can't we all just get along?
I loved the phrase that insinuated that these so-called peace lovers target the weapons as if they were the root of the evil that we all fear.
Just so long as there are those who would rape, pillage and plunder, the rest of us must be dilligent with our weaponry close at hand, whether it be my Colt Mark IV under the pillow or silos under the Dakotas, peaceniks be damned...! It is the job of our government to offer us this shield and the libs would have it removed to what end?
norman c harding| 5.7.10 @ 1:34AM
u r so right
JimZ| 5.6.10 @ 8:12AM
When the Iranians bray about their nuclear development, I wonder why no enterprizing reporter heads over to the Episcopal bishop or United Church of Christ offices to ask them what they think? Afterall, THEY are the folks ranting about disarmament.
KyMouse| 5.6.10 @ 9:17AM
"We mourn and remember," read one prayer at the interfaith anti-nuke convo, with Hiroshima and Nagasaki clearly in mind. "...but we choose to ignore the rape of Nanking, the Bataan death march, the invasion of Manchuria, the attack on Pearl Harbor, etc., etc.
cmoran| 5.7.10 @ 3:18PM
You are so right. My father was a Marine rehearsing for the invasion of Japan and stationed on Okinawa when the bomb was dropped. He had already seen enought death in the Philippines and his brother was recovering from a wound suffered at the Battle of the Bulge. My mother was waiting anxiously for my dad's return and I was born four years after the war. Thank God those brave Marines were spared an invasion.
Louis Jenkins| 5.6.10 @ 10:17AM
What a crock!! It doesn't mean a thing. Just a bunch of weirdos getting together to rub shoulders.
Tony in Central PA| 5.6.10 @ 10:19AM
It would be wonderful to live in a world where nations abandoned nuclear weapons in favor of peace. Its worth remembering, however, that the Nazis didn't need nuclear weapons to systematically slaughter millions. Stalin eventually acquired nukes, but didn't need them to accomplish his unparallelled butchery. Just those two examples leave out many centuries of barbarity before the Nuclear Age. So the problem maybe isn't so much nuclear weapons as human nature.
I found it noteworthy that the composition of attendees and the tone of their pronouncements seemed to leave out the possibility that evil with human hearts, or " original sin " as some old -timey religious used to call it, had anything to do with the risks of war, nuclear or otherwise.
On one point I wholeheartedly agree with the liberals directing the conference : " We have used our collective abilities for suicide...". Can I get an " Amen " ?
Alan Brooks| 5.6.10 @ 8:59PM
the Khmer Rouge merely used ordinary small arms, knives, sticks and stones.
stmichrick| 5.6.10 @ 9:26PM
Right Alan;
It's not about the weapons at hand; it's about the character of the antagonists.
Kind of like the gun control debate.
Wink.
Yosemeti Sam| 5.6.10 @ 10:57AM
"People have gathered here in advance of the U.N. meetings this coming week to express their concern and to call for an end to the possibility of nuclear war."
"We long for a day when nuclear weapons are
removed from the face of the earth."
" ... A long battery of leftist groups hosted a primarily anti-nuke "For Peace and Human Needs Disarm Now!" summit at famously liberal Riverside Church in New York this past weekend, featuring the United Nations General
Secretary. It concluded with an Interfaith Convocation for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons at the Church Center to the United Nations, a United Methodist outpost across the street from the UN complex...."
Upshot from this orgy of self-flagellation from those resentfully residing in Communist-free societies: give peace a chance, as Beatles would have it.
It's all in the guitar strumming lyrics - don't ya see?
The answer is always - blowing in the wind.
There is but one, and only one, fearsome answer
to Communist politico stripes who would seek
to subordinate the world to their lecherous desire
of subjugation - a Pershing missile or other some
pin-pointing salvo hindrance to their lusts: a
guarantee of messing up coveted stratified Commie amenities when push comes to shove!
Reportedly the US has a stockpile - one would
hope a foggy number as to full extent - of 5000 nukes +.
The question is - does one want a protective military on steroids or on a short-lived viagra solution?
Yo, US finest - Military front line backbone to freedoms.
Leftoid churches or other such venues, move to the rear - on the freedom express bus!
Margie| 5.6.10 @ 8:05PM
A bumper sticker on someone's car seen recently:
"Pacifism Is A Luxury Paid For By Warriors - USMC"
Eric(OfConservativeMind)| 5.8.10 @ 4:15AM
Right on the mark. There are those who may want to have no part of the military or its costs, but it's the one thing our U.S. government does really well. If we are not prepared to defend ourselves, we aren't prepared to live into the next century.
With Iran being supported by N. Korea, Russia, and China, it is only a matter of time before they have a workable nuke they can fire above the United States. If done correctly, the resulting E.M.P. and its effects on our infrastructure could likely mean the deaths of 2/3 of our nation's population.
To the military, to prosperity, to victory!
Margie| 5.8.10 @ 7:09PM
THIS is precisely why I absolutely abhor the Leftist non-interventionist Libertarian Paul-bots. They actually blame the U.S.A. for terrorism, and are to be shunned!
Petronius| 5.6.10 @ 11:54AM
To quote the late Frank Zappa
"There will be no nuclear war. There's too much real estate involved."
Gr0w1er| 5.6.10 @ 1:27PM
Frickin' moonbeamers. I doubt if any of them had relatives empaled on the business end of a Japanese bayonet. It was time for some Old Testament retribution and we took it. The Fission Bomb just happened to be the instrument to force Japan to surrender. After all, they started it. We ended it.
George Drosdowich| 5.6.10 @ 3:14PM
"liberals" whatever you mean by that generality, do not gloss over the the inhuman acts of evil people. Nor do "liberal" religions hide from human imperfection. Political and religious courage is more than holding on to your Smith & Wesson and acknowledging yourself as a "sinner" but trying to reach out for God, the source of all goodness, the ideal and aspiring to manifest that in ourselves and all mankind. True realism is seeking God and recognizing God in all of our fellow human beings especially the "bad" ones. You can rely on instinct for self preservation without trying to make yourselves feel better by turning it into a political theology.
Pingback| 5.6.10 @ 5:40PM
The American Spectator : Religiously Opposing Nukes and Human Reality capital univer links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
stmichrick| 5.6.10 @ 7:52PM
Clueless.
The motivation of these 'be-ins' is to publicly proclaim themselves morally superior to the best efforts of Western civilization to confront tyranny.
If only we had turned to them to deal with Hitler, Imperial Japan, the Soviets and now Islamic lunacy. Their enlightenment would have led to 'smart' negotiation and ultimate disarmament of all concerned.
Such flatulence.
Margie| 5.6.10 @ 8:02PM
Great post.
Richard| 5.6.10 @ 8:30PM
"Blessed are the peacemakers," whatever their religion or lack thereof. American Spectator clones can crow all they want about the "left." But when it comes to nukes the left has it right and the "right" is wrong.
If you want a nuclear-free Middle East, forget Iran, and go after Israel - a much more dangerous and bellicose entity and the source of most of our troubles in the area because of its aggressive, land-grabbing and apartheid behavior. Iran has never attacked a neighbor in modern times. It is with its nuclear arsenal that Israeli is seen as a threat to its neightbors. This is why they seek a deterrant.
Let Israel show the way.
stmichrick| 5.6.10 @ 9:17PM
So Richard;
Let me get this straight; disarm Israel and there would be peace.
I think disarm 'Palestinians' and Syrians and there would be peace.
The former scenario would ensure Auschwitz on the Mediterranean.
Why do you not believe the stated goals of the PLO and now Hamas; to drive the Jews into the sea?
Margie| 5.6.10 @ 10:19PM
To understand the Libertarian anti-Israel, non-interventionist Paul-bot mind, go here:
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/0.....ur-of-the-“ron-paul-revolutionary”-mind-2/
Eric(OfConservativeMind)| 5.8.10 @ 5:02AM
And ignore the Muslim mullahs in Iran and their call for worldwide destruction and chaos and the coming of the 12th Imam? You ignore the fact that Israel has been attacked more than once by groups of religious fanatics like Hamas from inside cities with many civilians about?
Even the Palestinians teach their children that Israelites are oppressors, civil rights abusers, and other such nonsense; http://www.palwatch.org/STORAGE/special reports/SchoolBooks_English_Final_for_web.pdf
Even without a nuclear arsenal would other peoples and countries in the Middle East be pushing for Israel's insolvency/destruction.
George| 5.6.10 @ 10:07PM
Anyone else notice that the Scientologists were not represented? I mean if you are going for all inclusive, be all inclusive.
JimZ| 5.7.10 @ 8:24AM
Good point! And what about the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses? And I don't see any Amish listed either.
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Margie| 5.8.10 @ 6:42PM
Ok~ here's something "interesting" to think about. Christians are not allowed to say that homosexuality is sin, and it is considered "hate speech." In Canada it is actually against the law. I am sure it will happen here soon enough, especially if we don't vote the Democrat party out of office. And Pastors and other denominations are not supposed to talk politics otherwise if they are non-profit 501-c3's orgs. they will have that status revoked.
But just look at how the Leftist "Churches" are allowed to preach complete Left-Wing anti-war politics. They are nothing but an arm of the Left Wing Communists! May they all go down in flames. Especially the National Council of Churches, which has nothing Church about it.
And don't forget when it comes to candidates running for office, that Rand Paul actually said "The Iranians want nukes because they feel threatened." Oh, the poor, poor babies. We're threatening them huh???!!!
The Paul-bot mind is a Leftist mind.
Read the link I provided above. Terrorist sympathizers, all.
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aelfgyva| 5.10.10 @ 11:37AM
Many a WWII grunt in the Pacific has since sung the praises of Harry S. Truman and his decision to drop those bombs on Japan and save thousands upon thousands of our brave soldiers from having to invade the Japanese homeland. Bravo, Harry Truman!
bubble-burster| 5.10.10 @ 7:48PM
What to do about nuclear proliferation is a serious problem. Mocking a comical gathering on the topic is no answer. Nor is endlessly refighting Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Do your country some good. Read what Ronald Reagan thought about nuclear weapons, proliferation, and abolition:
http://www.amazon.com/Ronald-R.....1400063078
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