The Pacific Conference of Churches has issued a new pastoral letter titled: Let Peace Govern Security: A Pastoral Open Letter on Micah 4:1–4 and the Ocean of Peace. It is addressed to “the leaders and peoples of the Blue Pacific, and to all who seek to be friends of our region.”
The following are some highlights from the letter. You can download the full pastoral letter here.
“The hope of an Ocean of Peace grew from a deep Pacific consciousness. It offered a way for our region to name its own vocation in a troubled world: peoples of the ocean seeking peace through relationship, dialogue, dignity and care for the whole community of creation.”
It is issued on the 80th anniversary of the nuclear tests in the Pacific.
“Earlier this month marked eighty years since the Able detonation over Bikini Atoll on 1 July 1946, the first so-called peacetime nuclear explosion following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
“A second detonation, Baker, took place underwater at Bikini on 25 July. They began twelve years in which the United States conducted 67 atmospheric nuclear tests in the air, at the surface and underwater at Bikini and Enewetak.
“The word “test” remains painfully inadequate. Marshallese lives, land, lagoons and ocean carried the consequences. The legacy reaches into bodies, family histories and the wellbeing of generations. Displacement continues. Contamination continues. The search for truth, justice and full reparation continues.
“The same communities face an advancing climate emergency. The language of friendship is tested by every decision that prolongs fossil-fuel dependence and protects profit at the expense of vulnerable people.
The letter offers a meditation on the Micah as a way forward:
“Micah has already shown the direction of God’s peace: nations learning together, disputes judged with justice, weapons converted, households released from fear.
Peace … “loosens the hold of fear, pride, suspicion and domination. It allows truth to be heard. It creates room for encounter and opens a path toward conversion.”