Christian Obedience in a Nuclear Age (1988)

This document begins with a description and analysis of international nuclear policy and strategy, with special attention to the United States. It presents especially the adherence to the practice mutually assured destruction by the United States and then-USSR and some nations’ entertaining of limited-use strategies of nuclear weapons. The majority of the study deals with the possibility of limiting or eliminating nuclear weapons, and how Christian obedience to God might play a role in that. The study does not reject all use of force, nor prescribe one means of mitigating the use of nuclear weapons. It lays down principles of Reformed theology (above all, God alone is lord of the conscience and the call to obey God before all other loyalties) to guide Christian ethics. It includes political, social, and economic justice, as well as the call some feel to nonviolent action, civil disobedience, or conscientious objection.

Since the adoption of Peacemaking the Believers' Calling in 1980-1981, peacemaking has become increasingly important in the life of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The Research Unit estimates that by 1987, 47 percent of the church’s 11,600 congregations had made a commitment of some kind to the cause of peacemaking through their sessions. Peacemaking committees and committed individuals have been exploring and implementing ways to put those commitments into action. Out of all this interest and activity, questions have inevitably emerged as to the most appropriate peacemaking strategies for individual Christians and for corporate bodies: congregations, presbyteries, synods, and the General Assembly.