The genetically hip Bianca Jagger addressed the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament's global summit in London last month-challenging Britain to lead the world in dismantling its nukes. "Who's going to give them up first?" she asked.
Of course, spiritual and religious leaders have long condemned the inhumanness of nuclear weapons. As Douglas Roche points out the current Sojourners magazine (Sleepwalking in a Nuclear Minefield, Sojourners, March 2008), "Nuclear weapons and human security cannot co-exist."
In 1983, the World Council of Churches, a fellowship of 347 denominations from virtually all Christian traditions in more than 120 countries, unequivocally rejected the doctrine of nuclear deterrence. (See more of the churches' statements.)
In Pope Benedict's 2006 World Day of Peace message, he criticized the idea of nuclear arms for security as "completely fallacious." He said, "The truth of peace requires that all-whether those governments which openly or secretly possess nuclear arms, or those planning to acquire them-agree to change their course by clear and firm decisions, and strive for a progressive and concerted nuclear disarmament. The resources which would be saved could then be employed in projects of development capable of benefiting all their people, especially the poor."
Even "The Governator" Arnold Schwarzenegger said in speech last fall, "Mistakes are made in every other human endeavor. Why should nuclear weapons be exempt?
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