NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) – The leader of a Christian movement that supports reduction of nuclear arms praised the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for passing a new treaty with Russia Sept. 16.
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty — New START for short — was signed by President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in April. It would reduce the United States' and Russia's deployed strategic arms to 1,550 per side and limit their launchers to 700 deployed launchers. It would also re-establish verification measures, including inspections, that lapsed when the previous START I agreement expired last December.
Tyler Wigg-Stevenson, director of the Two Futures Project, a group formed in 2009 to mobilize American Christians against nuclear weapons in a fashion similar to the role churches played in the abolition of slavery, called it a "modest" but "morally significant" act.
The evangelical leader called the movement for arms reduction "a natural outgrowth of biblical, Christian fidelity."
"Jesus Christ suffered and died for the salvation of the world," said Wigg-Stevenson, an ordained Baptist minister who attends First Baptist Church in Nashville, Tenn. "It belongs to him. And we have no authority to hold the danger of nuclear destruction over it."
The treaty, which has strong bipartisan support, is a high priority for President Obama's foreign policy. It is expected to go before the full Senate in November, where it will take a two-thirds majority for passage.
Religious bodies including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Council of Churches, the World Evangelical Alliance, the Episcopal Church and the United Methodist Council of Bishops all support the measure.
On Sept. 15 the Atlanta Journal-Constitution carried an op-ed piece co-written by Joseph Lowery, a retired Methodist pastor and icon of the Civil Rights Movement, and Jonathan Merritt, a rising young leader in the Southern Baptist Convention, to urge Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) to support the treaty.
"For those called to seek the kingdom of God before all other things, the quest for peace is never optional," they said in part. "While this treaty will not end the nuclear danger, let alone end war, it is a step in the right direction — and a measure deserving the support of all who wear Christ's gentle yoke."
The Two Futures Project takes its name from a core conviction that America and the world face two futures and one choice: a world without nuclear weapons or a world ruined by them.
-30-
Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.