it’s no mystery to my regular blog readers: i’m anti-war.
under any circumstances.
let me offer a singular reason for this proclamation, from which many other reasons flow.
i follow jesus and i believe the things he said.
that could be the end.
but, there’s more.
even in the event that the world is at peace in regards to physically fighting a war (which i don’t foresee for a very long time), it still doesn’t eliminate the need for the world to be 100% disarmed of nuclear weapons. all nuclear weapons=gone.
again, i believe this because i believe that jesus is anti-nuclear weapons. of course, as we know, jesus never made any statements about nuclear weapons. and, of course, we know that jesus didn’t make any statements whatsoever about modern weaponry. but, we also know that the words of jesus transcend his ancient setting.
i would like to think that i don’t have to try to convince you that a weapon that results in mass death and illness to hundreds of thousands of people in one moment is contary to the life and message of jesus. surely most of us are on the same page, right?
so, it’s with this that i was encouraged to see an organization headed up by a group of christians who is actively taking a role—both in the church world and the political world—to see through complete nuclear disarmament throughout the world.
The Two Futures Project (2FP) is a movement of American Christians for the abolition of all nuclear weapons. We believe that we face two futures and one choice: a world without nuclear weapons or a world ruined by them. We support the multilateral, global, irreversible, and verifiable elimination of nuclear weapons, as a biblically-grounded mandate and as a contemporary security imperative.
Our change strategy is based around the creation of a nonpartisan, conscience-driven, enduring majority of Americans who are committed to a nuclear weapons-free world. By joining together with one voice of Christian conscience, we seek to encourage and enable our national leaders to make the complete elimination of nuclear weapons the organizing principle of American nuclear weapons policy. We join in this work to the glory of God.
so, go check them out to find out more. they’ve got some fact sheets you can download, some further explanation and some videos for more information. while they have a couple bits of wording here and there that are a little iffy to me, it’s overall really good stuff and they’re being backed by some very notable endorsements (including rob bell, brian mclaren, tony campolo and other names of note).
here’s a compelling intro video they’ve made.
About Ryan Byrd
ryan feels kinda weird writing this little bio for his own website. i mean, honestly, you can probably draw whatever conclusions you'd like from reading his blog posts. as a matter of fact, here's a little exercise if you have a few spare minutes. grab a piece of paper and a pen, jot down 3-4 sentences that could be a bio for ryan and drop it in your mailbox. thanks in advance!
will this still allow hand-to-hand combat? those monks did it a bunch! maybe not the benedictines, but still… at least greco-roman wrestling, and even then, only with angels? btw, my word verification for this post is emanuel.
Have you ever read Yoder’s “What would you do?” it’s an excellent meditation on the idea of redemptive violence. I especially love the bit by Joan Baez. It’s very striking, and at the same time amusing in parts, but excellent thought in terms of the overall argument of “oh, but if you came home, and these people were raping your grandmother, surely you’d take action!”