World Evangelical Alliance Representative to the UN Interviewed on Nuclear Weapons and Why Christians Should Care
“The explosion instantly killed or injured people within a two-kilometer radius of the hypocenter, leaving innumerable corpses charred like clumps of charcoal and scattered in the ruins near the hypocenter. In some cases, not even a trace of the person’s remains could be found. A wind (over 680 miles per hour) slapped down trees and demolished most buildings. Even iron-reinforced concrete structures were so badly damaged that they seemed to have been smashed by a giant hammer”
These were the words of the Mayor of Nagasaki in his attempt at describing what the scenery was like the day the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on his city and destroyed it. An event which not only took the lives of many innocent people, but also marked the beginning of the excessive creation of weapons which would break all rules of law and endanger not only one city but the entire world.
Today’s American Christian society has failed to understand the dangers of nuclear weapons. This has resulted in a lack of movement towards taking a stance against their continual existence. The new generation that is rising has no idea about the burden they will have to carry, or the fact that at any moment their future can be taken away from them.
It is part of the mission of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) to inform their members and partners of the dangers of today. For this reason, WEA’s Permanent Representative, Deborah Fikes, joined by: Jonathan Granoff, President of Global Security Institute, Ambassador Libran Cabactulan, Philippines' Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Virginia Gamba, Director and Deputy to the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, discussed the importance of why Christians should care about the disarmament of nuclear weapons with the Christian Post.
“I am convinced that if we could educate our constituents in the U.S, particularly those in the younger generation, we will change the equation," commented Deborah Fikes during the discussion.
The article, which has already been published by the Christian Post on their website, sums up the discussion in eight key points. Among them was the vulnerability of younger generations, and how they are now slaves to the system created by those who are in control. Director Virginia Gamba, spoke of her own daughter as an example, “she's a slave to the [nuclear weapon] situation. If it's never used, she will be tied to paying the cost of this golden idol. And if is used, she will be tied to living with the consequences of that.”
Granoff described our situation with the following imagery, “We are sitting here trusting computers and a group of people […], who we don't know, with our lives.” Granoff also provided the group with a previous evaluation he made on the spending numbers involved with the maintenance of these weapons, which rounds up to about USD$100million every day.
The reasons discussed did not only cover the moral and economical but also the biblical principles. Fikes stressed the fact that ‘loving your neighbors as yourselves’ goes beyond the house next door, it goes beyond borders. It is this love that Evangelicals must use as power to speak up on the need to cease these weapons. Granoff brought up the point of protecting the creation God put in our hands, instead of destroying it in an attempt to protect what we have created, “nation-states”.
Polls done by political institutions like GALLOP show that 52.2% of Americans identify themselves as Christians. If Evangelicals have the ability of creating an awareness among our a society, which results in an uprising of their voice as citizens, and surfaces awareness among the generations rising as well, nuclear weapons will no longer stand as a threat.
-Keilly Fernandez, WEA UN team
Learn more about the WEA’s Engagement at the United Nations here
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