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Talk it Out, Reduce Nukes:

How Following Jesus Relates to International Cooperation

Rev. Paul Alexander, PhD

My father, a long time deacon in a Pentecostal church, has always encouraged me to “seek Jesus.”  As a minister and teacher, I try to follow his wise advice even when it is challenging.  But how widely can my father’s counsel be applied?  Is Jesus relevant to international relations and the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons?  The authors and endorsers of the Matthew 5 Project think so.  We claim that seeking Jesus is quite relevant, and we argue biblically, theologically, and empirically for international cooperation and the reduction of nuclear weapons.  In this article I will share the substance, realism, and hope found within the Matthew 5 Project statement and encourage you to consider endorsing it and discussing it in your churches.[ii]

As Bible-believing Christians, we recognize Christ’s lordship over all areas of life. The rise of global terrorist networks call for a renewed application of Jesus’ lordship to meet the challenges of our time.  In Matthew 5:21-26, Jesus commands that if we are about to give a gift to God at the altar, but become aware of anger between us and another, drop the gift, go at once and make peace with the other. And if an adversary or enemy is taking us to court, make peace with that enemy quickly while there is still time. These are commands, imperatives, from Jesus; they do not depend on the other being someone who meets our approval.  These commands apply to fellow Christians and to enemies or adversaries in general. In Matthew 5:21-26, Jesus is teaching about relations with a brother, adelpho, which likely means a fellow believer, and relations with an adversary, antidiko, which means an enemy or opponent in general.[iii] In Matthew 5:41, “if someone forces you to go one mile,” Jesus is referring to Roman soldiers who compelled Jews to carry a pack one mile. In Matthew 5:43-45, “Love your enemies,” Jesus was interpreting Leviticus 19:17-18, “love your neighbor as yourself,” and answering the question, “Who is to be included in the community of neighbors?’ His answer: Everyone to whom God gives sunshine and rain. All are included by God, even our enemies.

“For the Health of the Nation,” a statement unanimously adopted by the National Association of Evangelicals, declares: “The peaceful settling of disputes is a gift of common grace. We urge governments to pursue thoroughly nonviolent paths to peace before resorting to military force. . . . We urge followers of Jesus to engage in practical peacemaking locally, nationally, and internationally. As followers of Jesus, we should, in our civic capacity, work to reduce conflict by promoting international understanding and engaging in nonviolent conflict resolution.”[iv]  Toward an Evangelical Public Policy declares: “A key test of the seriousness of governments’ claims to be seeking peace is whether they initiate negotiations or refuse them and whether they develop imaginative solutions that show they understand their adversary’s perspectives and needs. Jesus said that when there is anger between us and another, we must drop everything, go to the other, and make peace. It is a command, not an option (Matt. 5:23ff.).”[v] We welcome the quiet Reformation happening in our time, when many are growingly sincere about seeking to follow Jesus in all of life.

Therefore, we encourage a principled commitment to following Jesus in seeking out adversaries, and seeking to make peace. We want to try to understand what motivates our adversary, and be willing to talk about reasons for the antagonism, instead of hating our adversary and avoiding all conversation or diplomacy.  Talk may sometimes need to be blunt, but it should always be based on listening and trying to understand what is motivating our adversary.  We should never treat anyone as beyond the reach of the Holy Spirit to bring conviction, change, and redemption. Even though the apostle Paul had formerly terrorized Christians, his heart was changed when he encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus (Acts 9).  As Christians we should refuse to dehumanize our enemies or deny that they, too, have been created in the image of God.

Overcoming the nuclear threat requires international cooperation.  Major threats in our time are that a rogue nation will develop nuclear weapons or a nuclear weapon will fall into the hands of terrorists. In a July 2006 interview with Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, evangelist Franklin Graham stated, “I want to encourage the president, I want to encourage this administration, those in Congress—we need to talk to the North Koreans face to face, period. Eyeball to eyeball. And there is a lot that can be accomplished if we simply just do that.”[vi] Saddleback Pastor Rick Warren said of North Korean missile tests: “I am not a politician. I am a pastor. But I do know that in any conflict—whether in a marriage, in business or between nations—as long as the parties keep talking, there is hope. My plea to everyone involved in this diplomatic process is to please, keep talking.”[vii]

The validity of Jesus’ way of talking directly to make peace was recently demonstrated by the effort to persuade North Korea not to develop nuclear weapons. Initially, neither the Clinton nor the Bush administration agreed to talk with North Korea. Instead, they both relied on threats. North Korea responded by building what they called a nuclear deterrent against possible U.S. attack. Wiser heads in both administrations saw that refusing to talk was not working.  U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill eventually talked directly with North Korean negotiators. They quickly worked out solutions. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Bush have affirmed the result of the talks, North Korea’s Yongbyon reactor is closed down, and international inspectors are monitoring it. Talking works better than merely threatening while refusing to talk.

Ever since the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty of 1968, there have been many successes in persuading nations not to develop nuclear weapons. In those forty years, only India and Pakistan have developed nuclear weapons. The keys to the decisions of sixteen nations that decided not to develop nuclear weapons were direct talks, international nonproliferation agreements, international consensus against nuclear proliferation, and awareness that nuclear weapons are not useful. In not a single case were nations motivated to avoid going nuclear because the United States or some other nation refused to talk with them. It was the reverse; other nations did talk with them, made clear the penalties they would pay if they developed nuclear weapons, and guaranteed support for their security if they stayed with international cooperation.[viii]

Ever since the Iranian hostage crisis during the Carter administration, the U.S. government has refused to talk with the Iranian government. But in 2006 President Bush and his aides wisely reached the decision to offer conditional talks to Iran. “Mr. Bush's search for a new option was driven … by concern that the path he was on … would inevitably force one of two potentially disastrous outcomes: an Iranian bomb, or an American attack on Iran's facilities.”[ix] Therefore, Condoleezza Rice announced that the United States would join multilateral talks with Iran “once Iran suspends disputed nuclear activities. Kazem Jalali, spokesman for the Iranian parliament's Foreign Policy and National Security Committee, said the U.S. move might be viewed positively in Tehran if preconditions were dropped.”[x]

To give in to the demand that they suspend enrichment of uranium even before talks begin is difficult in a culture that values honor. It would mean giving up the right to enrich uranium for generating electricity—a right universally recognized for other nations. David Isenberg writes in Defense News: “After all, nearly 30 years after the 1979 revolution, we need to consider what the policy of no official U.S. dialogue with Iran has achieved in terms of influencing Iranian behavior. In a word: nothing.”[xi]  Howard Baker, Secretary of State in the first Bush administration, pointed out that the United States and the Soviet Union talked directly many times, helping us avoid nuclear war and achieve a peaceful end to the Cold War. Former U. S. foreign policy officials, both Republican and Democratic, including Zbigniew Brzezinski, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, Madeline Albright, Richard N. Haass, and Richard L. Armitage, support direct U.S.-Iranian unconditional negotiations. The United States has crucial disagreements with Iran, but Jesus does not say talks should be refused until we approve of the conduct of the adversary.

Jesus is a realist and we call on all nations to be willing to talk with and listen to antagonists. Many of our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents saw the devastating destruction of World War II. When they returned from that war, they dedicated themselves to creating international networks in order to enhance national security. Those war-preventing networks include practices of conflict resolution, trade relationships, organizations like NATO, the European Union, and the United Nations—all imperfect, as the U.S. Congress is imperfect—but all serving as partial checks and balances against rash action by imperfect national governments. These, along with international law, have worked to prevent nuclear war. Political scientists report that nations cooperating actively in this web of security have experienced less war than other nations.[xii] We honor the wisdom of our elders who were a part of that “greatest generation,” who worked to build these international networks of security so we would not fight a world war again.

Nuclear weapons are a physical threat. By intention, by accident, or by escalation of war, they could kill millions or even billions of human beings created in the image of God. The United States and the Soviet Union still have thousands of nuclear weapons. England, France, China, India, and Pakistan have far fewer—but still enough to do horrible destruction of sacred human lives. If a terrorist gets one, we are in greater danger.

Nuclear weapons are a moral threat. Possessing them includes preparing to use them. Presidents are given possession of “the football”—the communication device that orders them to be detonated over the lives of our fellow human beings. Military are trained in the routines to fire them; and trained that it would be their duty actually to do so. In this way, nations are nudged toward acting as if they believed it would be right to kill millions or billions of people for whom Christ died. Such preparation, given the sinfulness that the use of nuclear weapons would be, is tantamount to a discipline toward sinfulness, the inverse of sanctification.

But can we do anything about it? Influential editorials in The Wall Street Journal (January 4 and 13, 2007) by seventeen conservative U.S. former national security policy-makers, including George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, James Goodby, and Sam Nunn, declared that the existence of large numbers of nuclear weapons in the world threatens to destroy untold numbers of humankind; and it decreases U.S. security. Today’s problem is not deterring the Soviet Union, but preventing proliferation of nuclear weapons into potentially dangerous hands. Therefore, continuing Cold-War reliance on nuclear weapons is a grave danger to U.S. security as well as world security. The United States would be far more secure in a nuclear-free world.

These conservative national security experts advocate specific steps: extend verify and reduce the size of nuclear forces internationally, agree with Russia to move away from plans for massive nuclear attacks based on short warning times, ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, halt production internationally of nuclear fissile materials for weapons and develop an international system that provides reliable supplies of nuclear fuel for electricity so nations like Iran do not have an incentive to enrich uranium unilaterally, and reach agreement for further reductions in nuclear weapons internationally. The more worldwide reductions in nuclear weapons are achieved, the safer we all are, and this must be achieved by international cooperation. We have to “talk it out, reduce nukes.”

In order to safeguard life, liberty, community and security for its own citizens and for the world, the United States must demonstrate moral leadership in strengthening the rule of law in the international community and seeking diplomatic negotiations with allies and enemies alike. As Christians, we seek to express our citizenship in ways that prioritize faithfulness to Jesus and to biblical standards of justice, rather than allowing our political decisions to be driven by prejudice or narrow nationalism. We commit ourselves to build international partnerships with fellow Christians around the world.

International problems require international solutions.  We give thanks that since the end of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union have made helpful reductions in the size of their nuclear arsenals. This has been bipartisan U.S. policy. We are all safer for it. We urge international cooperation in continued step-by-step reductions, working toward ways to verify abolition of nuclear weapons worldwide. Finally, we call for obedience to the Lordship of Christ in all that we do. When we experience conflict with a brother, sister, or adversary – we will go talk and seek to make peace, as Jesus calls us to do.