Byron Dorgan: Theocrat?
By: Mark D. Tooley
FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, January 18, 2008
The Religious Left is claiming to have killed – at least momentarily - the proposed Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW), a program that would update the aging U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Having organized a letter from 50 left-leaning clerics in North Dakota, the Religious Left is claiming credit for having persuaded Senator Byron Dorgan, who chairs the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, to omit funding for RRW in 2008.
“Two dozen North Dakota United Methodist Church (UMC) clergy, including Bishop Deborah Kiesey, helped lead the effort to block the Bush administration’s plan to build a new generation of nuclear weapons,” boasted a release from the United Methodist lobby office in Washington, D.C. “Ending this nuclear warhead program is a major victory for disarmament advocates across the world.”
The letter was specifically organized by the pacifist Americans Friends Service Committee, which is the putatively Quaker, far-Left political lobby. United Methodist Bishop Kiesey of Fargo was the lead and most senior signer. Most of the signers were United Methodist or Evangelical Lutheran (ELCA) clergy. Both denominations are hemorrhaging members in North Dakota and across America. Clerics who prioritize politics over traditional church work are no doubt one contributing cause to the Methodist and Lutheran decline.
“As religious leaders, we cannot envision a situation in which we could support the indiscriminate destruction of human life through the use of a nuclear weapon,” the letter sanctimoniously opened. “We join with other religious communities in this country and in the world that have long advocated for a world free of nuclear weapons.” Of course, very few in America support “indiscriminate destruction of human life” through nuclear arms, or any other means. The purpose of America’s nuclear arsenal is to deter war, not launch it.
But for the signers, it is all simple:
The teachings of the Bible are clear that as people of faith in North Dakota, we must be committed to the task of peace making. Jesus told his followers, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9). Psalm 34 calls us to “seek peace and pursue it.”
But seeking peace requires considerably more exertion than simply issuing declarations demanding that the world’s chief restrainer of war, and rogue states waging low-level warfare against us, not maintain viable weaponry.
In an effort at some seriousness, the letter quoted the opposition to RRW by former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn. Will canceling or forestalling any updating of the U.S. nuclear arsenal make America or the world safer? Proponents of RRW argue that aging warheads in their fourth or fifth decade pose health hazards and should, with time, be replaced. RRW is a program that would develop replacement options, possibly leading to fewer nuclear warheads. But the Religious Left demands “arms control,” as it demands gun control, in the belief violence will end if the law-abiding are deprived of weapons.
The Religious Left in many ways is the direct successor to the Prohibition movement. Indeed, the original United Methodist lobby office was one of Prohibition’s chief architects. Abolishing legal liquor will prevent intoxication, Prohibition enthusiasts promised. At least churches in the early 20th century had some direct experience with the societal wages of excess alcohol consumption. Few clerics have any technical or geopolitical expertise of the sort necessary to advise the president on defense and weapons policy. But for 40 years, the Religious Left has insisted on virtual unilateral disarmament by the U.S., even at the height of the Cold War and the Soviet military build-up. Just as gun control disarms lawful citizens but not criminals, the Religious Left’s vision of arms control would disarm the world’s chief policeman but not its rogue states.
In writing Senator Dorgan, the 50 North Dakota clerics urged him to “to oppose the administration’s proposed Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW). In particular we are writing to ask you to delete all funding for this program from next year’s federal budget. We applaud the bipartisan House decision to zero out funding for the new nuclear warhead, and hope you will agree to this course of action when you consider in conference committee the fate of the RRW program."
For whatever reason, Dorgan agreed with the concerned clerics of his native North Dakota, and no RRW spending was included in the 2008 appropriations legislation that President Bush eventually signed. “This victory is an example of people of different faiths coming together to make a tangible impact on the legislative process,” the United Methodist lobby office boasted. “With one unified voice, these North Dakota clergy of different denominations, but shared values, lobbied Congress to end an immoral, dangerous and wasteful new nuclear weapon program.”
Curiously, no one is demanding to know why Senator Dorgan is making policy based on ministers' recommendations, nor is anyone citing this leftist policy as proof of creeping theocracy.
Nor has Dorgan learned from the movement's discredited history. In 1986, the United Methodist Council of Bishops released “In Defense of Creation,” which endorsed the goals of the Nuclear Freeze movement and specifically condemned President Reagan’s proposed anti-missile Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Less than a decade later, after the Soviet Union’s collapse, former Soviet officials credited Reagan’s “Star Wars” proposal for persuading them that the Soviet Union could not win an arms race. Meanwhile, some United Methodist bishops still mindlessly promote their obsolete anti-nuclear screed of 20 years ago as an exemplar for future manifestos.
Thoughtful Christians understand that peace and political balance often require deterrence, political savvy, and military strength. But the Religious Left prefers to believe that disarming the U.S. is the magical door to ending all “violence” and ushering in The Millennium.
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