Answers + Evidence

The abolition of nuclear weapons is an idea whose time has come, and a future we must achieve. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t still a lot of questions.

Fortunately, we’ve got answers. Check out our Q&A, below — and learn why abolition is getting such strong, nonpartisan support that even skeptics have to give it a fair hearing. Want to take the answers with you? Download our formatted factsheet.

If you’ve got a question that we haven’t answered, be sure to let us know by clicking the box to the right. We’ll do our best to respond — and we might even add your question to the list of Answers + Evidence.

about nuclear weapons?

As Christians, we cannot condone nuclear weapons because God abhors the shedding of innocent blood. Given this, the only plausible moral use for nuclear weapons is the deterrence of their use by other nations-and even that is morally problematic. But the logic of deterrence, which governed nuclear policy throughout the Cold War, is undone in the post-9/11 era, because nuclear terrorism by a non-state actor cannot be deterred by the threat of retaliation. In order to prevent nuclear materials from falling into terrorist hands, we need international cooperation-which we can’t get unless we’re serious about a world without nuclear weapons, including our own arsenals.

We recognize that even one nuclear blast would be a great sin for the innocents it killed, the damage done to the creation we are supposed to care for, and the poverty that the economic fallout would create. The only way to secure against a nuclear explosion is to eliminate the weapons altogether. Our horror at the possible evil of a nuclear blast motivates us to act in the present and prevent that future from coming about.