As if we didn’t have enough to worry about

Last year I heard the Nobel Prize winner and representative of ICAN the “International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons,” Dr. Ira Helfland speak. The focus of his talk was the now too often ignored dangers of nuclear weapons. It was sobering, for this sobering time.

In a recent newsletter, ICAN reported that Global spending on nuclear weapons reached a staggering $119 billion dollars last year (2025). And over the past 5 years, reached $471 billion!

The chief international group fighting the proliferation of nuclear weapons reports that the 119 billion dollars spent globally in 2025 amounts to $3,768 per second. And that, that amounts to a 19% increase from 2024. Probably not shocking you, if you follow global trends is the truth that the good old USA alone spent 69.2 billion alone. That’s slightly more than all other nuclear-armed states combined. China, came in 2nd spending 13.5 billion. This is almost the definition of insanity.

ICAN, asks us to imagine what the world would look like if that money had been spent on something other than weapons of mass destruction. It’s a simple question, and the answer is even simpler. Better! The world would be better. The good news is that nearly everyone agrees.

In a world… being taken over by the rapid growth of Artificial Intelligence; a Christianity liberated from the compassion of Jesus; a world either in denial, or at least woefully unresponsive to the real threats brought by climate change; and presently in the middle of a global shift towards autocracy, things can feel disheartening. And, there is no question that like no time before this one, but in a way similar to the way it always has been, the world is ignoring the potential for good, and charting a path towards destruction. It’s a scary time, that begs us for our own comfort to turn away. Don’t. Lean in. Like Lisa, and Merideth, and Teresa, and Trek, and Heidi, and really so many of us are doing. Lean in. Here is why.

Because, the future is undetermined, either destruction or real healing is possible.

Because, as bad as the trends of the last few years have been, it is also just as true that most people, and even most countries in the world reject the priorities, and trends underway.

Try to remember that. Just like most people oppose the proliferation of nuclear weapons, most people want the best for not only themselves, but others too.

As disheartening as the nuclear weapons statistics, and trends listed above are, we must remember, in the course of human history, we do most often…eventually… come to find many of the things we once accepted in the past as normal, to be unacceptable.

I want to say that again, because it is so true, and so hard to hold these days. In the course of human history, on that way, way too slow arc of human consciousness we do most often…eventually… come to find many of the things we once accepted as normal, to be unacceptable, cruel, part of what most of us want to leave in the past. I know that is a run on sentence, but it is true.

And, although, I believe that the day when nuclear weapons are dismantled and seen as too dangerous for the greater good, that day is made closer by every act of reason and love we can perform. So…don’t give up. As Reinhold Neibuhr said, “Nothing worth doing will be accomplished in your lifetime.” Just keep choosing to be good and hold the truths of what could be.

I know it is redundant, but let’s continue to be a people and a place that holds true to a vision of a world if not free of oppression, greed, division, and hatred. Or at least a world that does not prioritize that as the path forward. I mean what else can we do.

I know it sounds Pollyanna. I know it does, and sometimes it feels that way to me too. But it remains true that most people are with us. ICAN also bears the news that 93% of the nations of the world want to see nuclear weapons abolished. 93%, if you are bad at math is almost all of them. And likewise, most people wish nuclear weapons to be added to the dustbin of history.

In this disheartening time, where every news item feels like a slap to human dignity, there is underway an overall global decline in the percentage of people starving, a general trend of more and more women being educated, an increasingly shared understanding that race is a cultural creation, and that one’s sexual identity and preference is a human right, and that the human psyche and in particular that of children need to be protected.

I could go on. And will never stop.

We see a world truly in crisis. It is! But in that crisis are the potential seeds of renewal.

As you likely have heard me say before, slavery is if not eliminated now only mostly practiced in the shadows, ritual human sacrifice and cannibalism is almost non-existent, we have the tools, and have largely defeated a significant amount of disease, globally the rate of homicides and the percentage chance that any given person will die in a war is also way down. Don’t forget that.

The LGBTQ community although under persecution, has more rights than 50 years ago. We are cleaning up rivers, and more and more know that the planet needs protection from the dreams of billionaires. It’s true.

Let’s be strong in our commitment that, as it always will be, reason and love must be the path forward.

Thanks for being part of one small church among many, many, many others trying to save the world. Cause that is exactly what we are trying to do.

Steve