November 18, 2009
By the Rev. Dr. John Dorhauer
Conference Minister

A couple weeks ago, I was invited to speak at a gathering of religious leaders interested in participating in an effort to petition our government to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

This is important, and for many of us it is completely off of our radar screen. I want to thank the Rev. Liana Rowe, who has been chosen by the Society of Friends as their legislative educator here in Arizona, for bringing all of this to our attention. Sometime next year, the Senate will be asked to ratify the treaty and pass it on to the President for his signature. Because John McCain has shown past interest in a nuclear weapons free world, there is reason to hope that we in Arizona can bring our voices to bear on a critical swing vote when the vote is taken.

I want to share with you the words, or - since it has been a few weeks - some like them, I shared with religious leaders that morning.

I want to say a word or two about voice this morning.

There is a voice from our sacred tradition that speaks to us from Scripture. We believe it to be the voice of God. And from the Psalmist we hear this: "The Earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof."
I wonder, what does it mean as a people of faith to live on an Earth which we readily believe belongs to the Lord, and yet which we can destroy many times over with the work of our hands?

What does it mean to live in such a world where our comfort can be found in these rather haunting words: mutually assured destruction?

I am sure that throughout history, enemies have stood across their dividing lines and shouted at each other threats of destruction and total annihilation. And perhaps they both meant them and believed them. But before the imagination dreamed up nuclear weapons and human ingenuity completed the onerous task of their actual creation and the fertile human mind built a justification for their actual deployment and our own eyes witnessed first-hand their destructive capabilities, no civilization before ours ever had to adjust its psychic and spiritual barometers to live in both the aftermath of a detonated nuclear bomb and the realization that those who threaten total annihilation have the capacity to do just what they threaten.

In his remarkable song, "Talking World War III Blues," Bob Dylan finds his voice. In the song, he sits on a couch speaking to a psychiatrist about a recurring dream in which he awakens to a desolated world, blown away by a nuclear winter and from which he emerges the lone living human. Like many of the novels and plays that were written in the aftermath of the Second World War, his scenes depict absurdity: art trying to express what subconscious fears produce.

In one scene, Dylan actually discovers another, a woman. With typical Dylan bravado, his words to her are a come on: "Let's go play Adam and Eve." And in true Dylan fashion, the words have deeper meaning than the simple machismo evident on the surface. This is an offer of hope, albeit one that offers him the prospect of sex (and what counter-cultural revolution in the 60s didn't offer that?).

The response of this unnamed woman in his dreams reflects the point of this blues tune, as well as the voice of the prophet: "Hey man, you crazy or sumpin', you see what happened the last time they started?"

In other words, 'what would be the point?'

If the pinnacle of human ingenuity leads to the creation of a weapon that promises total and mutual destruction; and if there is something inside of us that can detest another so much we will deploy those weapons even at the cost of our own existence; and if with that knowledge we continue to produce these weapons well past the point of our mutually assured destruction: why start over?

We are presented now with an opportunity. Our government is soon to deliberate about whether or not to ratify a treaty calling for a comprehensive ban on the testing of nuclear weapons, a treaty which they have already agreed to in principle.

Where is the voice of the church? Where is the reminder that while the Earth is the Lord's, stewards empowered by their Creator bear the obligation to sound the clarion calls for peace, for moderation, and for creating pathways that preserve, protect, and provide for Earth's sustenance?

I have observed that for far too long, critical voices within the household of faith have been silent on this. I suspect there are a variety of reasons for this. There is a plethora of competing and impinging realities that threaten the fabric of Shalom woven indelibly through our relationships. Knowing at any given time where to focus our immediate attention is never an easy choice. There is the strong sense of ennui that can come when the prospects of hope seem dim in the face of great odds.

There is the apparent discomfort that comes when voices are challenged in hard times to speak hard words.

To quote another counter-cultural voice of the Dylan era, Arlo Guthrie wrote in his epic anti-war ballad "Alice's Restaurant":

And the only reason I'm
singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar
situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a
situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into
the shrink wherever you are, just walk in say "Shrink, You can get
anything you want, at Alice's restaurant." And walk out. You know, if
one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and
they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony,
they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them.
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in
singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an
organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said
fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and
walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.