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Important votes at the United Nations (UN) in early November give an indication of how much of the world wants new action to eliminate nuclear weapons, and how determined the main nuclear powers and their allies are to resist such long-overdue change.

„In erster Linie müssen wir von uns verlangen, zu unseren Überzeugungen zu stehen. Die Überzeugung des Ökumenischen Rats der Kirchen lautet, dass die Welt von Nuklearwaffen befreit werden muss“, sagte Pastorin Dr. Sang Chang, ÖRK-Präsidentin für Asien, während ihrer Ansprache auf dem Nuclear Disarmament Symposium in Hiroshima, Japan, am 6. August.

“The first thing that is required of us is to live the courage of our convictions. For the World Council of Churches, our conviction is that the world must be freed of nuclear weapons,” said the Rev. Dr Sang Chang, WCC president for Asia, in her address at the Nuclear Disarmament Symposium held in Hiroshima.

Seventy years after nuclear fireballs exploded over two Japanese cities, an ecumenical group of pilgrims has come to Hiroshima to listen to those who survived and renew the struggle against their own countries’ continued reliance on nuclear weapons.

Bishop Dr Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, chair of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and a member of the church leaders’ pilgrimage to Japan on the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings, pressed the case for the Humanitarian Pledge against nuclear weapons at the Hiroshima Day rally on 6 August 2015.

Church leaders from seven countries currently making historic choices for or against outlawing nuclear weapons will embark on a pilgrimage in early August to the two Japanese cities that were decimated by atomic bombs 70 years ago.

In early August, WCC representatives will embark on an unusual pilgrimage. A group of church leaders will travel to two cities devastated by the deadliest of weapons 70 years ago, then visit governments still willing to destroy thousands of cities in similar fashion today.

Four weeks of negotiations on nuclear weapons came to a close on Friday 22 May, as the Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ended without a formal agreement. Despite the outcome, a bright new prospect towards a world without nuclear weapons has emerged in the form of a Humanitarian Pledge, now endorsed by 107 states, which promises “to fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons”.

„Atomwaffen sind mit den Werten unserer jeweiligen Glaubenstraditionen unvereinbar“, sagten Vertreterinnen und Vertreter von etwa 50 christlichen, buddhistischen, muslimischen und jüdischen Organisationen am 1. Mai. Die interreligiöse Erklärung wurde als gemeinsamer Aufruf an die 191 Regierungen gerichtet, die dem weltweit größten Abrüstungsabkommen angehören. Der Aufruf, mitgetragen vom ÖRK, wurde an der Konferenz zur Überprüfung des Vertrags über die Nichtverbreitung von Kernwaffen in New York im Rahmen von Referaten der Zivilgesellschaft gemacht.

“Nuclear weapons are incompatible with the values upheld by our respective faith traditions”, representatives of some 50 Christian, Buddhist, Muslim and Jewish organizations said on 1 May. The inter-religious statement came in a joint call to the 191 governments participating in the world’s largest disarmament treaty. The call, co-sponsored by the WCC, was made during civil society presentations to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in New York City.

Should robots make life and death decisions? Religious leaders are asked to tell governments “Never”.

Four member churches of the WCC are represented among 26 faith leaders in the United Kingdom who issued a joint statement recently calling on states with nuclear weapons to join other states in negotiations to eliminate nuclear arsenals.

The WCC gives thanks for the life and work of renowned academic, theologian and political analyst Dr Ninan Koshy. A former executive secretary and director of the WCC’s Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, Koshy died at the age of 81 in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India on 4 March.