Faslane 365

This weekend I will be joining a number of students and staff from several theological colleges in a pilgrimage to the Faslane naval base near Glasgow, home of the UK's strategic nuclear deterrent. I am going to take part in a service of worship and witness, as part of the protest against our government's policy of renewing the Trident missile system, our weapons of mass destruction, at a cost of between 20-76 billion pounds. You can read about the action on the Ekklesia website here.

Over the past 2 years of working with Professor John Hull, I have come to agree with him that the renewal of Trident is unjustifiable militarily, politically, economically, legally, religiously and ethically. John has written a paper outlining the arguments against renewal of Trident, which can be found here. We sent it to most of the cabinet, the Defence committee, countless MPs, all of the Church of England bishops and many more key figures, with very little response. The government produced a White Paper in December, outlining its intention to renew Trident, which made no reference to the ethical issues involved. John wrote an ethical critique of the White Paper, a summary of which can be found here.

I feel it is important to demonstrate the almost unanimous opposition of the Christian churches in this country to the renewal of Trident (Scottish and English Catholic bishops, many Anglican bishops including the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Church of Scotland general assembly, senior representatives of the Methodist church, the United Reformed church and the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Quakers and many others have all opposed Trident renewal), and to worship and pray at the place where these dreadful weapons are held.

We are apparently going to be on the BBC show 'Heaven and Earth' on Sunday morning, how exciting!