Washington National Cathedral

The Sunday Forum: Critical Issues in the Light of Faith

The Very Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd III, host

Cathedral Dean Samuel T. Lloyd III and Tyler Wigg-Stevenson explore the issue of nuclear weapons, including recent weapons tests in North Korea, and the role that faith groups are playing in the movement to eliminate weapons of mass destruction.

Nuclear weapons are perceived as conferring both power and legitimacy, leading nations to desire them. A select group of nine countries have nuclear weapons, whereas others do not; the vast majority of these weapons are held by the United States and Russia. Wigg-Stevenson discusses the inevitable confrontations that will arise between “nuclear haves and have-nots.”

The topic of nuclear weapons has lost its urgency in recent years, possibly causing the public to lose sight of their hazards. During the Cold War, Wiggs-Stevenson says, “Nuclear weapons occupied … the same psychological space as for Christians does, say, the Book of Revelation. It’s the thing past which you don’t have to think because, if it happens, why bother planning? It’s the end of the world.” Today, a potential terrorist attack generates a comparable fear; but a terrorist attack is not perceived as having the same apocalyptic potential as a nuclear explosion.

Why discuss nuclear weapons now? Some leaders believe that efforts to regulate nuclear weapons have reached a tipping point. If Iran “goes nuclear,” the weapons could proliferate in the Middle East. Wigg-Stevenson points out, however, that nuclear weapons are not the only effective deterrents. North Korea, for example, deters open conflict with its very large army and a vast arsenal of conventional weapons.

“I think we have experienced God’s mercy in the fact that we haven’t seen nuclear catastrophe so far,” Wigg-Stevenson says. “I think that mercy does sustain.” Despite this mercy, and despite the difficulty of negotiating an end to nuclear weapons, he believes that they should be eliminated; for him they have all the legitimacy of the bubonic plague.

This is Wigg-Stevenson’s call of faith. “As Christians we are called to be preservative agents,” he declares, “and to be faithful to the God who has saved the world in Jesus Christ.”

Tyler Wigg-Stevenson is the founding director of the Two Futures Project, a movement of American Christians for the global abolition of nuclear weapons. An ordained minister with a decade of experience in nuclear weapons issues, he also serves as policy director for Faithful Security: the National Religious Partnership on Nuclear Weapons; and sits on the board of directors for the Global Security Institute (GSI), which he helped found. Wigg-Stevenson is the author of Brand Jesus: Christianity in a Consumerist Age.

About Tyler Wigg-Stevenson

Tyler Wigg-Stevenson is the founding director of the Two Futures Project, a movement of American Christians for the global abolition of nuclear weapons. An ordained minister with a decade of experience in nuclear weapons issues, he also serves as policy director for Faithful Security: the National Religious Partnership on Nuclear Weapons, and sits on the board of directors for the Global Security Institute (GSI), which he helped found. He is the author of Brand Jesus: Christianity in a Consumerist Age (2007).