Last week, Congress refused - for a second time - to fund the Bush administration's demand for a new nuclear weapon system, the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW). However, cutting funding for the RRW is one of those big moves destined to generate little fanfare.

It is a little too technical and incremental to be heralded as a decisive step towards nuclear abolition, and yet the RRW program - which over the next decade or so would have upgraded the core workings of all U.S. nuclear warheads - was a life line for the nuclear weapons complex at a time when President George W. Bush was one of the few holdouts on the global consensus on disarmament.

So, cutting $10 million for the nascent program could very likely be the beginning of the end of the flow of resources into new nuclear weapons development.

The move "reflects a broad rejection of President Bush's aggressive nuclear doctrine, and may also signal a new opportunity for true American leadership away from nuclear weapons," notes Cara Bautista, deputy political director for Peace Action West.

Stephen Colecchi, director of the Office of International Justice and Peace for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told Sojourners:

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has opposed funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead for a long time. As Bishop Wenski, the Chairman of the Committee on International Justice and Peace, wrote in a letter to Congress: 'The moral task today is to proceed with deeper cuts and ultimately to ban nuclear weapons entirely, not to create new ones. Just war moral criteria require that the use of force be proportionate and discriminate, minimizing harm to civilians. The use of nuclear weapons cannot meet these criteria in any meaningful sense.'

We can credit everyone from Henry Kissinger to Helen Caldicott to grassroots activists with groups like PeaceAction and the Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Free World with helping to create a political climate in which Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and others could act.

The religious community and nuclear arms reduction advocates can celebrate a victory on this one.

Frida Berrigan is a senior program associate at the New America Foun­dation's Arms and Security Initiative. Read what religious leaders have to day about nuclear weapons in A Crime Against Humanity (Sojourners, March 2008) Read Frida Berrigan's overview of the military spending budget in 'A Theft from Those Who Hunger' (Sojourners, June 2008).

On May 20, The Jerusalem Post reported that "a senior member in the entourage of President Bush" said during closed meetings that Bush and Cheney "were of the opinion that military action against Iran was called for." The White House denied the story, which claims that the reservations of Secretaries Rice and Gates are the remaining levies holding back the floodwaters of war. Tensions mount as Senators McCain and Obama spar over appropriate engagement with Iran.

The elephant in the room, of course, is what Mohamed El-Baradei, head of the IAEA, calls "the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue nuclear weapons but morally acceptable for others to rely on them." Even if most Americans agree that Iran should not have nuclear weapons, we've surrendered the moral high ground with our cache of thousands of nuclear warheads, which we maintain to the tune of $16 billion annually. As Sen. Obama points out, "Iran spends one one-hundredth of what we spend on the military." What he doesn't add is that at $515 billion per year, we spend more on militarism than the rest of the world combined. And that's not including the $200 billion we will spend this year in Iraq and Afghanistan. The truth is that with the rising costs of health care, housing, gas, and food, we can't afford not to talk with Iran. After all, it's you and I who will foot the bill, along with our children and grandchildren.

Christians, however, are called to be faithful, not merely pragmatic. We must ask the hard question: What does our faith say about violence against our enemies? The prophetic book of Isaiah opens with a troubling word from God to the nation of Israel, which condemns religious charades. God is not impressed by our poignant prayers, high holy days, generous offerings, spirited worship, or sacred sacrifices. Instead, God desires righteousness, justice, and solidarity with those who suffer -- the things that make for peace. As in much of the Hebrew Testament, God addresses a nation, not mere individuals. Perhaps it is not enough, in other words, for us to do the difficult work of reconciling with our personal enemies if our nation beats the war drums. Perhaps it's our systems that God is concerned with, not simply our personal sins.

Just when it seems that God will not tolerate one more prayer from blood-covered hands, God beckons: "Come, let us reason together." Come, let us reason together. God wields power to open dialogue, rather than end it. In the United Church of Christ, we often say that "God is still speaking." And so long as God is willing to reason with us, though our sins are blood-red, then it behooves us to reason with one another.

Our scriptures do not deliver utopian heroes, families, communities, or political and religious authorities. They acknowledge the insidious nature of sin, because God's grace is most profound when it meets our broken places. Jesus' instruction to love our enemies is not simply for prosperous and peaceful times. Isaiah proclaims that precisely in the times when our "lands are desolate," God calls us to reason together. In In the Company of Strangers, theologian Parker Palmer contends that, "to let God mediate our relationships means that … one listens not with a sense of personal power … but with a sense of God's presence which alone can heal … When we allow God to be the third person in all our meetings, fear is replaced by hope."

It is our complicated task as Christians to discern what this word from God might mean in our present context when we hear of wars and rumors of war. As Christians whose faith informs our participation in public life, we are translators of biblical truth into ethical principles that can be applied to matters of public policy. God beckons us to come and "reason together." What will we choose?

Rev. Amanda Hendler-Voss is the faith communities coordinator at Women's Action for New Directions (WAND), minister of Christian education at First Congregational United Church of Christ in Asheville, North Carolina, and recent author of In Times of Great Decisions: How Congregations Can Take Part in Legal, Non-Partisan Election Activities.

The genetically hip Bianca Jagger addressed the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament's global summit in London last month—challenging Britain to lead the world in dismantling its nukes. "Who's going to give them up first?" she asked.

Of course, spiritual and religious leaders have long condemned the inhumanness of nuclear weapons. As Douglas Roche points out the current Sojourners magazine (Sleepwalking in a Nuclear Minefield, Sojourners, March 2008), "Nuclear weapons and human security cannot co-exist."

In 1983, the World Council of Churches, a fellowship of 347 denominations from virtually all Christian traditions in more than 120 countries, unequivocally rejected the doctrine of nuclear deterrence. (See more of the churches' statements.)

In Pope Benedict's 2006 World Day of Peace message, he criticized the idea of nuclear arms for security as "completely fallacious." He said, "The truth of peace requires that all—whether those governments which openly or secretly possess nuclear arms, or those planning to acquire them—agree to change their course by clear and firm decisions, and strive for a progressive and concerted nuclear disarmament. The resources which would be saved could then be employed in projects of development capable of benefiting all their people, especially the poor."

Even "The Governator" Arnold Schwarzenegger said in speech last fall, "Mistakes are made in every other human endeavor. Why should nuclear weapons be exempt? … A nuclear disaster will not hit at the speed of a glacier melting. It will hit with a blast. It will not hit with the speed of the atmosphere warming but of a city burning. Clearly, the attention focused on nuclear weapons should be as prominent as that of global climate change."

Roche, who is chair of the Middle Powers Initiative, states in his article in the current Sojourners magazine, that Congress has authorized the Bush administration "to develop and submit to the Congress a comprehensive nuclear weapons strategy for the 21st century." The centerpiece of this strategy is not nuclear disarmament. Instead, the plan is to upgrade our nuclear arsenal

Isn't it time we take real and effective action on containing nuclear weapons and nuclear materials? Dismantling the weapons is the first step. Who's going to take it?

Rose Marie Berger, a Sojourners associate editor, is a Catholic peace activist and poet.

The day after Christmas, President Bush signed an omnibus spending bill containing a major victory for all those committed to a world free of nuclear weapons: the complete elimination of funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program. This program would have led to a new generation of nuclear warheads, and possibly a new nuclear arms race, under the guise of ensuring the reliability of current nuclear warheads.

Congress saw through the program—despite its euphemistic name—and so did the American public. When a reporter for the San Francisco Gate stopped Californians on the street last year and asked them what name they would have picked for the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, he received some spot-on answers, including, "Stupidly Provocative Warhead," "The Let's Kill Them All Warhead, and, "An Efficient and Comprehensive Instrument of Death and Destruction."

Whatever the administration called it, the Reliable Replacement Warhead program represented yet another effort to build newer and more usable weapons of mass destruction. (Ironically, the administration's funding proposal for the program came at a time when tensions between the U.S. and Iran over Iran's nuclear energy program were at an all-time high.) When will our political leadership realize that as long as nuclear weapons exist, we'll be living under the threat of nuclear annihilation?

Many Christians have been working to eliminate nuclear weapons for longer than I've been alive. These immoral weapons of mass destruction have robbed us of our security ever since the first one was exploded in the desert of New Mexico, less than an hour from my house. In over half a century, we haven't seen a whole lot of victories. But last year, former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, and former Senator Sam Nunn laid out a bold new vision for a world free of nuclear weapons—thus bringing tremendous new energy to efforts to lift the nuclear threat once and for all.

And now, instead of funding the administration's request for the RRW program, Congress is demanding a new evaluation of nuclear weapons strategy for the 21st century. As it turns out, our current nuclear weapons policy hasn't been updated since the Cold War.

It's truly time for a change. Until the elimination of nuclear weapons becomes our number one priority, we're likely to see the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, repackaged in shiny new wrapping paper, coming up again year after year.

Jessica Wilbanks is the coordinator of Faithful Security, the National Religious Partnership on the Nuclear Weapons Danger.

I couldn't sleep after watching last month's Republican presidential forum on August 5. I was especially disturbed by the intersection of two statements made by Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo. Perhaps because he is not in the top tier of Republican candidates, it was easy to consider his statements marginal and negligible, but I believe – completely apart from his presidential aspirations – that his statements should get us thinking, especially those of us who are, like Rep. Tancredo, known as evangelical Christians.

The representative said that as president he will tell Muslim extremists that if they attack the United States with nuclear weapons, he will respond by bombing Medina and Mecca.

Although the State Department has called his statement "reprehensible" and "crazy," a few days later Tancredo offered what seemed to be further justification for his statement. He explained, according to Iowapolitics.com, that a promise to destroy Muslim holy sites "is the only thing I can think of that might deter somebody from doing what they would otherwise do. If I am wrong, fine, tell me, and I would be happy to do something else. But you had better find a deterrent, or you will find an attack."

Although none of the other candidates in the forum seemed to agree with Tancredo, they all seemed eager to prove themselves most ready to keep nuclear weapons "on the table" and to present themselves as "strong on national defense," which now may turn out to mean "committed to pre-emptive war theory over just war theory."

Tancredo's threat was all the more disturbing to me in light of something he said later in the same forum when asked about his most significant mistake. He replied, "… it took me probably 30 years before I realized that Jesus Christ is my personal Savior."

Of course, this confluence of aggressive rhetoric with professions of evangelical faith is not unique to Tancredo. For example, a recent editorial by a popular and award-winning religious broadcasting personality had a similar theo-combative tone. Christiane Amanpour's recent "God's Warriors" series on CNN brought a number of other similar voices to our attention.

Democratic candidates are certainly not immune to this impulse to flex their combat credentials, evidenced by recent sparring between leading candidates. We can hope, in the midst of a heated campaign season, that responsible theologians and religious leaders will acknowledge the 800-pound gorilla in the room, and engage in a needed public conversation about faith, politics, and war. This life-and-death conversation can't be left to politicians and media pundits alone. A recent New York Times article by Mark Lilla raises some key issues to be addressed in this needed dialogue.

A few evangelical voices have spoken out strongly against this ongoing inflation in aggressive rhetoric, but in my mind, remarkably few. Some, no doubt, do not want to dignify extreme statements with a reply. A surprising number, though – readily searchable in the blogosphere – are actually saying "amen."

As I mull all this over in the middle of the night – running the bases from angst to depression to prayer and hope - I can't help but think of the oft-heard complaint regarding moderate Muslims: Why don't they stand up and speak out more vociferously against the violent rhetoric of Muslim extremists? If their religion truly is peaceful, why don't they speak up for peace more passionately? This may now become a "plank and splinter" issue (Matthew 7:3-5) for evangelical Christians – not to mention Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, mainline Protestants, and others -- raising questions like these:

At what point does the rhetoric of fellow evangelicals (or Roman Catholics, etc.) become extreme enough to elicit from evangelical leaders the kind of loud and public response we wish moderate Muslims had been giving regarding Muslim extremists? Which leaders are speaking out, and which aren't?

Does Rep. Tancredo's recent statement qualify as excessive? Why or why not? If not, what would push it over the line?

How can evangelicals in particular and Christians in general who don't agree with this kind of rhetoric respond constructively - and in ways that will be heard as widely as the original statements?

How do thoughtful Christian theologians respond to this kind of rhetoric? On what basis do they justify or reject this kind of rhetoric and the biblical interpretation used to defend it? Where and how can concerned seminary professors and other scholars speak up and be heard?

What will be the predictable effects of this kind of rhetoric on the public perception of "evangelical" and "Christian" – among younger Christians in America? Among non-Christians? Among Muslims here and around the world?

What forms of deterrence can be explored that are more in line with the life and teachings of Jesus? In other words, if we reject both Rep. Tancredo's approach and the opposite approach of passivity, what could a creative, nonviolent, responsible third way look like?

How can we learn from leaders like Dr. King and Desmond Tutu to stir people to be as passionate about active peace-making as a solution to war as others are about war-making as a solution to war?

If "holy war" rhetoric is indeed escalating in a vicious cycle among Muslims, Christians, Jews, and others, what will be the predictable outcome? How can concerned religious leaders work for a new kind of dialogue and in so doing help chart a more peaceable course for their faith communities?

How can American evangelicals, and Christians in general, escape our echo chamber and begin to listen to the wise voices and concerns of their brothers and sisters around the globe – as Ryan Rodrick Beiler's recent posting invited us to do?

These questions are worth raising, because in the election year ahead, I expect there will be a lot more of this kind of "God's warriors" rhetoric to respond to. Maybe Rep. Tancredo's proposal can serve the constructive purpose of provoking some mature and constructive reflection – some evangelical ijtihad, to borrow a theme from Irshad Manji.

I do not in any way want to vilify Rep. Tancredo. The fact is, he cares about something worth caring about: how to stop the vicious cycle of terrorism that seems to be escalating each day. Even if his proposal is as dangerous and misguided as I believe it is, the candidate is to be commended for seeking a solution to this very real danger. I hope that more and more of us will become motivated – and resourced by our faith – not simply to complain about violent solutions to the problem of violence, but instead to make better proposals, because this one, I believe, is a recipe for disaster. To continue living by the sword, according to a reputable authority, is not a sustainable long-term strategy for living at all.

Brian McLaren is board chair for Sojourners/Call to Renewal. His new book, Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope, will be released October 2 and explores these issues in more depth and detail.

While vacationing in northern Minnesota, we take an early morning walk down a country road. We note changing weather, the sound of birds, an eagle flying high, the beauty of a leaping dear across the field. After just about a mile, we turn around at a well-cared-for cemetery, a reminder to make the most of each day. We've been reading Herbert Brokering's book, I Will to You: Leaving a Legacy for Those You Love, a whimsical calling forth of the words, memories, and traits that we want to pass on to our loved ones.

We reflect after breakfast of homemade whole wheat bread and Swedish coffee on what's going on in the world, what's important, the family. This summer spot is also the final resting place of our parents, reminding us of their legacy of care for others and God's creation shared in words and lives.

Mom, so concerned about nuclear proliferation and America's violent responses, at the age of 78 stepped into a boat with my brother in the chilly Puget Sound, protesting against the Trident nuclear submarine. "It's because I love my country that I want to correct her," she said to a journalist. When they arrested her on those waters and brought her to court, reporters asked, "Why did you, an American Mother of the Year, commit civil disobedience?" Without a moment's hesitation, mom said, "I did it for the children of the world."

Several years later, a doctor informed her of a fast-growing malignant tumor. She was just finishing her last book, A Grandma's Letter to God. She shared this response:

Now I want to witness to what it means to trust you (God) in such a time, with such a problem. I want to tell the world what freedom there is in being able to say, "Whether I live or die, I am the Lord's." I love life, Lord, and if you should give me more time, I want to be about your business. I want to challenge my beloved country to put its trust in you, not in nuclear bombs. I want to challenge people everywhere to be stewards of what you've given them—and for those of us who have been given so much to share our skills and resources and love with those who have so little. What a world that would be—the kind you meant it to be! But, God, if this is the time you tap me on the shoulder, what anticipations are mine!

What a legacy. Each of us will leave some kind of legacy. Makes me want to use the time and opportunities I have left to be about God's work of justice and community.

Mary Nelson is president emeritus of Bethel New Life, a faith-based community development corporation on the west side of Chicago. She is also a board member of Sojourners/Call to Renewal.

Franz Jagerstatter, Austrian peasant and church janitor, is honored on August 9, the day he was executed in 1943 for his refusal to fight in Hitler's army. As a Roman Catholic he has been declared a "martyr of the faith" and is expected to be "beatified" this October. Franz lived the gospel that the church proclaims. He is a solitary witness of nonviolence from whom the community can learn.

Today we also remember the people of Nagasaki—victims of U.S. Weapons of Mass Destruction. We recall that city turned to ash and rubble. In Iraq, cities are also turned to radioactive rubble and ash, by the U.S. invasion and continuing occupation.

My city of Detroit is under military assault. Its resources are stripped by a war that has cost the citizens of Michigan $12 billion, and city residents $767 million in tax dollars. Why is money lacking for schools, clinics, community developments?

Moreover, the young people of our city are conscripted into the military by false promises, outright lies, and an economic draft which seems to offer no alternative living. We recall that the first soldier killed in Iraq was Marine Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez, a 28-year-old undocumented immigrant who was posthumously awarded U.S. citizenship.

We offer this prayer:

To the church we say:
Speak out and act against this war, from the pulpits (especially on August 1-19), from offices high and low. Read and live the gospel.
Lift up nonviolence; Honor Jagerstatter; remember the victims; repent our silence.

To the Pentagon and its recruiters we say:
End this war now. Obey international law. Leave our young people alone.

To the young people of our city we say:
There is hope in the communities of this city.
There is a future, economic and social, but we must make it ourselves.
We need one another; we need you here in the struggle for life and community.

To the dead of Nagasaki we say:
Forgive us even now. We commit ourselves to putting an end to these weapons.

To the people of Iraq, we say:
Forgive our silence and our complicity. Forgive our submission to these leaders.
We pledge to end this war. Refuse to pay for it. Refuse to fight in it.

Bill Wylie-Kellermann, a United Methodist pastor, is currently serving at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Detroit, Mich. He is author of Seasons of Faith and Conscience (Orbis), which explores the biblical and theological bases for nonviolent resistance and "liturgical direct action," and has edited an anthology, A Keeper of the Word: Selected Writings of William Stringfellow (Eerdmans).

In August, 1945, Fr. George Zabelka, a Catholic chaplain with the U.S. Army Air Forces, was stationed on Tinian Island in the South Pacific. He served as priest and pastor for the airmen who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was discharged in l946. During the next 20 years he gradually began to realize that what he had done and believed during the war was wrong, and that the only way he could be a Christian was to be a pacifist. He was deeply influenced in this process by the civil rights movement and the works of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi.

In 1972 he met Charles C. McCarthy, a theologian, lawyer, and father of 10. McCarthy, who founded the Center for the Study of Nonviolence at the University of Notre Dame, was leading a workshop on nonviolence at Zabelka's church. The two men fell into the first of several conversations about the issues raised by the workshop. Some time later, Zabelka reached the conclusion that the use of violence under any circumstances was incompatible with his understanding of the gospel of Christ. When this article appeared in Sojourners in August 1980, Fr. Zabelka was retired, gave workshops on nonviolence and assisted in diocesan work in Lansing, Michigan.—The Editors of Sojourners

Charles McCarthy: Father Zabelka, what is your relationship to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945?

Fr. Zabelka: During the summer of 1945, July, August, and September, I was assigned as Catholic chaplain to the 509th Composite Group on Tinian Island. The 509th was the atomic bomb group.

McCarthy: What were your duties in relationship to these men? Zabelka: The usual. I said mass on Sunday and during the week. Heard confessions. Talked with the boys, etc. Nothing significantly different from what any other chaplain did during the war.

McCarthy: Did you know that the 509th was preparing to drop an atomic bomb?

Zabelka: No. We knew that they were preparing to drop a bomb substantially different from and more powerful than even the "blockbusters" used over Europe, but we never called it an atomic bomb and never really knew what it was before August 6, 1945. Before that time we just referred to it as the "gimmick" bomb.

McCarthy: So since you did not know that an atomic bomb was going to be dropped you had no reason to counsel the men in private or preach in public about the morality of such a bombing?

Zabelka: Well, that is true enough; I never did speak against it, nor could I have spoken against it since I, like practically everyone else on Tinian, was ignorant of what was being prepared. And I guess I will go to my God with that as my defense. But on Judgment Day I think I am going to need to seek more mercy than justice in this matter.

Click here to read the rest of the Sojourners interview with Fr. George Zabelka.

To speak out against the nuclear weapons build-up and sign on to a "Statement from Religious Americans Opposing the Complex 2030 Plan," click here.

This sermon was preached by Ginny Earnest at a Hiroshima-Nagasaki Memorial Service hosted by Sojourners Community on August 6, 1987. For Hiroshima-Nagasaki memorial service resources, please go to Faithful Security (National Religious Partnership on the Nuclear Weapons Danger).

Most Americans first heard about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the way our government ended the second world war. That is true whether you were alive at the time or born since 1945—we were taught and most of us believed that the choice to use the atomic bomb saved the lives of thousands of U.S. soldiers—our fathers, our uncles, our husbands, our friends.

Something that happened to an unknown people, a great distance from us, a long time ago, prevented a tragedy in our own families and neighborhoods. The bombs were used as a part of military stategy by the experts who were supposed to know about such things. It was another terrible necessity in a time of war.

For many there is only the image of the mushroom cloud and the massive display of power, viewed from other cities of military planes, viewed at a safe distance.

But we know that what happened on this day, 41 years ago, was so much more than an abstract symbol of a strategic choice. We must attempt to understand the meaning of the events of those days from a different vantage point—up close and through the eyes of compassion, where it will affect us.

For many of us, commemorating the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a part of our yearly liturgical calendar and, like Good Friday, it is an evening of facing into pain, opening up old wounds, retelling a sad story because we know that it continues to hold meaning for our lives and for the world.

What is at the heart of this sad and terrible story? How do we open ourselves to listen again?

Mitsuyoshi Toge, born in Hiroshima in 1917, was a Catholic and a poet. He was in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped on the city on August 6, 1945, when he was 24 years old. Toge died at the age of thirty-six. His first hand experience of the bomb, his passion for peace, and his realistic insight into the event made him a leading poet in Hiroshima. This poem is from Hiroshima-Nagasaki: A Pictorial Record of the Atomic Destruction (1978).

How could I ever forget that flash of light!
In a moment, thirty thousand people ceased to be,
The cries of fifty thousand killed
At the bottom of crushing darkness;

Through yellow smoke whirling into light,
Buildings split, bridges collapsed,
Crowded trams burnt as they rolled about
Hiroshima , all full of boundless heaps of embers.
Soon after, skin dangling like rags;
With hands on breasts;
Treading upon the broken brains;
Wearing shreds of burn cloth round their loins;
There came numberless lines of the naked,
                all crying.
Bodies on the parade ground, scattered like
                jumbled stone images of Jizo;
Crowds in piles by the river banks,
                loaded upon rafts fastened to the shore,
Turned by and by into corpses
                under the scorching sun;
in the midst of flame
                tossing against the evening sky,
Round about the street where mother and
                brother were trapped alive under the fallen house
The fire-flood shifted on.
On beds of filth along the Armory floor,
Heaps, and God knew who they were …
Heaps of schoolgirls lying in refuse
Pot-bellied, one-eyed, with half their skin peeled
                off bald.
The sun shone, and nothing moved
But the buzzing flies in the metal basins
Reeking with stagnant ordure.
How can I forget that stillness
Prevailing over the city of three hundred thousands?
Amidst that calm,
How can I forget the entreaties
Of departed wife and child
Through their orbs of eyes,
Cutting through our minds and souls?

For Hiroshima-Nagasaki memorial service resources, please go to Faithful Security (National Religious Partnership on the Nuclear Weapons Danger).