SOME OF US at Sojourners remember the existential angst of life during the nuclear arms race of the 1980s. If you were of a certain church tradition, you might have had an internal debate about what would get you first—the rapture or nuclear holocaust. And you might have been among the millions of people who worked for nuclear disarmament, a movement that helped drastically dial back the number and acceptability of nuclear weapons.
But now the last remaining strategic arms treaty between the U.S. and Russia expires in February 2026, and some world leaders, including the U.S. president, threaten to resume testing of nuclear weapons. David Cortright and William D. Hartung remind us of the vital role religious people played in resisting nuclear weapons in the past and how the work continues today.
Talk of heaven is dismissed by some as a way of avoiding responsibility for the world around us. But Nick Peterson argues that “heaven-talk” can also reject existing political and economic systems in favor of God’s more radical promises and vision. As a new year begins, we root ourselves again in hope, history, community, and fresh epiphanies.
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