wfn.org | United Methodists laud test ban treaty

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern,
about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (3186 notes).

Note 3185 by UMNS on Sept. 24, 1996 at 15:53 Eastern (3667 characters).

SEARCH:Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news
agency of the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville,
Tenn., New York, and Washington.

 United Nations, nuclear weapons
CONTACT: Linda Bloom                    10-B-21-71
          New York (212) 870-3803       Sept. 24, 1996

United Methodists laud
signing of test ban treaty

by United Methodist News Service

     The entire nation should celebrate the signing of the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, according to the United Methodist
bishop who helped draft a denominational letter on the nuclear
crisis.
     Passed overwhelmingly by the United Nations General Assembly
on Sept. 10--with a vote of 158 to 3--the treaty was to be signed
Sept. 24 by President Clinton and other world leaders.
     Bishop C. Dale White, retired and living in Newport, R.I.,
called the new treaty "a pivotal moment in human history."
     Its passage had been advocated by both peace and religious
groups. In April 1995, White was among religious leaders calling
for a "fast for the abolition of nuclear weapons" during a press
conference at the United Nations.
     According to the Rev. Alan Geyer, a United Methodist and
retired professor of political ethics and ecumenics at Wesley
Seminary, the call for an end to nuclear testing was first raised
during the 1956 presidential campaign. Most United Methodist
leaders and the denomination's Board of Church and Society had
shown "steadfast support through these four decades" on the test
ban issue, he said.
     The most visible example of that support was the 1986 pastoral
letter issued by the United Methodist Council of Bishops entitled
"In Defense of Creation: The Nuclear Crisis and a Just Peace."
Geyer was coordinator of the research project which led to the
document and White its principle author.
     In that letter, the bishops clearly and unconditionally
opposed nuclear war and any use of nuclear weapons and set forth a
number of policies for a just peace, including a comprehensive test
ban.
     Helen Caldicott--the Australian pediatrician who organized
Physicians for Social Responsibility, an anti-nuclear group--has
called the bishops' study "the most important document released
during that period," according to White.
     Geyer told United Methodist News Service that the Sept. 24
treaty signing is important because "testing tends to be the engine
that drives nuclear weapons development." Such a ban also helps
contain nuclear proliferation, he added.
     The original Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear
Weapons, passed in 1970, limited nuclear weapons to five countries
who had them at the time--the United States, Britain, France, China
and the then Soviet Union. With the new treaty, those nations voted
for a permanent ban on all testing, including their own.
     "All the five powers already have stopped testing," said the
Rev. Randy Day, pastor of Jesse Lee Memorial United Methodist
Church in Ridgefield, Conn. He and the Rev. Takayuki Ishii, pastor
of Metropolitan-Duane United Methodist Church in New York,
witnessed the U.N. General Assembly debate and vote on the treaty.
     Day considers the treaty "a major step on the road to total
disarmament."
     He has participated in protests at the federally-owned Nevada
Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and was twice arrested
there briefly for trespassing, most recently in August 1995.
     Although each signing nation is basically obligated to abide
by the treaty, Day said, it also must be formally ratified by those
nations. In the United States, ratification comes from the U.S.
Senate.
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