Cook: Presbyterians, peace and the nuclear bomb

FILE - This Nov. 19, 2012, file combo photo shows anti-nuclear weapons activists Sister Megan Rice, left, Michael Walli, center, and Greg Boertje-Obed in Knoxville, Tenn. They were convicted in 2013 of sabotage for vandalizing a bunker storing much of the nation's bomb-grade uranium. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the sabotage charge in May, leaving a conviction on the lesser charge of injuring government property. On Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2015, a judge resentenced the three to time served. (Saul Young/The Knoxville News Sentinel via AP, File)
FILE - This Nov. 19, 2012, file combo photo shows anti-nuclear weapons activists Sister Megan Rice, left, Michael Walli, center, and Greg Boertje-Obed in Knoxville, Tenn. They were convicted in 2013 of sabotage for vandalizing a bunker storing much of the nation's bomb-grade uranium. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the sabotage charge in May, leaving a conviction on the lesser charge of injuring government property. On Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2015, a judge resentenced the three to time served. (Saul Young/The Knoxville News Sentinel via AP, File)
photo David Cook

On Good Friday, just days before Easter, the U.S. Department of Energy gave final approval to complete construction on the Y-12 National Security Complex's new Uranium Processing Facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

The UPF will be the largest construction project in the history of Tennessee. The National Nuclear Security Administration, along with other supporters including Sen. Lamar Alexander, promise that while the UPF will cost billions, it will also bring millions of dollars and thousands of jobs.

God, forgive us.

It could also bring about the destruction of life as we know it.

The UPF is the place we make uranium for nuclear weapons.

Able to destroy life and Creation, nuclear weapons - and the new UPF - are moral crimes, spiritual sins.

"The nuclear bomb is the most anti-democratic, anti-national, anti-human, outright evil thing that man has ever made. If you are religious, then remember that this bomb is Man's challenge to God. It's worded quite simply: We have the power to destroy everything that You have created," writes Indian novelist Arundhati Roy.

In response to the growing threat of nuclear war, members of the local Presbyterian Church (USA) have begun to speak out.

At its February meeting in Chattanooga, the East Tennessee Presbytery approved language - called an Overture - by a 2-1 vote that denounced nuclear weapons, calling "upon all members of the Presbyterian Church, USA, in faithfulness to the God of justice, mercy and compassion, to take actions in defense of God's creation."

This summer, the Overture - called "On Seeking God's Peace Through Nuclear Disarmament in the 21st Century" - will go before the entire Presbytery's General Assembly meeting in St. Louis. If approved, it would become official language for the entire church.

"Nuclear weapons can't co-exist with God's vision of creation," said the Rev. Ralph Hutchison. "It's not just a matter of if our political nation would survive. It's a matter of if creation would survive."

Hutchison is a Presbyterian minister, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, and for decades a Christian voice of peacemaking in Tennessee and the South, working against the production of nuclear weapons uranium in Oak Ridge.

"Its sole mission is the production of thermonuclear cores for warheads and bombs," he said. (A copy of the Overture can be found at orepa.org).

Hutchison recalls the Cold War 1980s, when the Presbyterian Church was among the first U.S. churches to forcefully denounce nuclear arsenals. Then, communism collapsed, and the church fell silent.

"My goal is to once again see faith communities speak with a moral voice about nuclear weapons," he said.

Responding to the U.S.'s approximately 1,500 nuclear weapons, the Overture is both theology and practical policy, renouncing the "false god of nuclear security" while condemning any "policy that threatens the death of millions of God's children in any land with a single command."

It also references past and current treaties, calls on redirection of resources to clean up nuclear waste, and support of organizations abolishing weapons.

The Overture also encourages Presbyterians to:

-join ecumenical discussions at the highest levels to develop strategies to abolish nuclear weapons across the globe

-make use of resources to educate members

-take the Five Risks for Peace

"Commit to the Gospel of Peace, confess our complicity in not being peacemakers, reclaim Christ the peacemaker, find new peace strategies and convert the empire and work for peace," the Overture reads.

"God is not anything that is not love," Hutchison continued. "That is the fundamental challenge of Christianity: are you willing to love so much that you are willing to make yourself vulnerable, even to risk your life?"

Hutchinson has known Sen. Alexander, a long proponent of the UPF, for years.

"I understand politics. And I understand the money," Hutchison said. "But somewhere inside that political persona that Alexander has embodied for the last 15 years, there is a person. And nuclear weapons require us to answer as a human being and a person. Not as a politician. Not as a former governor or someone bringing home the bacon.

"We should ask ourselves: What right have I to threaten life of the planet and creation itself? Ultimately, we have a responsibility to address this as human beings."

David Cook writes a Sunday column and can be reached at dcook@timesfree press.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook at DavidCookTFP.

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