Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Start Praying

Reacting in part to recent missile tests by Iran and North Korea, President Obama and a unanimous UN Security Council last week endorsed a sweeping strategy to halt the spread of nuclear weapons and ultimately eliminate them. Is nuclear disarmament a religious issue? Is it a pro-life issue? Is support for nuclear disarmament a moral imperative? Should we pray for nuclear disarmament?

I watched last week, for the umpteenth time, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, a movie made nearly 50 years ago. In the movie, a paranoid U.S. general diverts his B-52 bombers from airborne alert to an attack on the Soviet Union, using nuclear weapons. But the Soviets have—and plan to use if attacked—a secret doomsday weapon designed to destroy all life on the planet. After the attack by the U.S., instead of responding in kind, the Soviets decide to use the doomsday machine. Their rationale is that it makes no sense to save the lives of only a few—especially when they are part of a species capable of annihilating the world. If a few survived, wouldn’t they inevitably recreate the same mistrust and struggle for domination that caused the devastation?

Today, between the U.S. and Russia, there exists a “mutual deterrence” strategy—the idea that each will refrain from attacking the other because to do so would surely cause complete destruction of the planet. In theory, total and mutual nuclear armament is a kind of safeguard against annihilation; in reality, however, each nation has developed its own doomsday weapon.

Is nuclear disarmament a religious issue, a moral imperative, or a pro-life issue? The question touches on all three. Religion may tell us what our lives mean, and whether there is something greater than us in the universe. Moral imperatives and ethics guide us in deciding what is fair, just, and right. But both religion and ethics are just the tip of the iceberg, hinting at a much greater and deeper issue—the sanctity and preservation of human life.

In fact, three of the world’s major faith traditions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—embrace a belief in the sanctity of human life. In the Qur’an, each individual human life is equivalent to that of the entire community—and should be treated with care and reverence. Judaism details this belief most clearly: one human is worth an entire world. If you kill just one person, you are destroying all of his or her potential offspring and descendants. But, by the same token, saving one person saves an entire world. For Christians, when Jesus heals one blind man, one leper, one lame person—he heals all of humankind in that act.

Yes, we should pray for nuclear disarmament. We should pray that people of all faiths, people of no faith, people who care about morality and ethics and people who embrace anarchy. We should pray that each and every one of us recognize and remember the sanctity of human life, that by saving one life, we save an entire world.