"A country which has dangled the sword of nuclear holocaust over the world for half a century and claims that someone else invented terrorism is a country out of touch with reality."

There is nothing dramatic or theatrical in pointing out that the production and use of nuclear weapons is terroristic. And so we, as nuclear Americans, know what terrorism is, because we have inflicted it on others.

Yes, it is embarrassing to say this, as an American. Yes, it is difficult to say this, as an American. Yes, it would be far, far easier to say something else today, in the wake of the horrific terroristic attacks on the World Trade buildings and the Pentagon.

But there are people who have been saying for the past 50 years that the production and use of nuclear weapons is terroristic. And I am one of them. Some of us have spent years in jail for saying so. All of us have been marginalized by the prevailing ideology of America.

Tens of thousands of people, civilians, men, women and children, grandparents and grandchildren, died in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. And three days later, on August 9, 1945, tens of thousands more died in Nagasaki in a second nuclear attack, an act which has never been and could never be, justified by any rational or moral argument.

It needs to be said, because it is true, that the production and use of nuclear weapons is terroristic. It needs to be said now, because the forces in our nation which have produced and justified these weapons of nuclear terrorism will be tempted now, in special and frightening ways, to propose once again the use of nuclear weapons. It needs to be said clearly, because it clarifies the fact that the moral distance between those guilty of today's attacks and those guilty of the use and continued stockpiling of nuclear weapons is not so great as to justify self-righteous pronouncements or acts of violent retaliation. Now, not some other time and place, is the time to turn to another way.

Short of proposing the use of nuclear weapons, the voices which routinely justify the stockpiling and threatened use of nuclear weapons, can be absolutely expected to propose acts of retaliatory violence which will ignore the lives of the innocent, escalate the cycle of violence and multiply the forces of hatred and fear in our world.

And so, if we are humbled, and terrified, and left speechless by the evil which we have witnessed today in New York and Washington, as we should be, let us also be humbled, terrified and left speechless by the fact that our nation has unleashed the violence of war on civilian populations in Japan, with nuclear weapons, and let us meditate on the fact that we have not repented of these acts. We witness, instead of repentance, the justification on every hand of continuing policies of nuclear terrorism, overwhelming military might, and the use of violence around the world to protect the privilege of the rich. We witness plans to escalate America's reliance on violence into outer space, into the very heavens, with new weapons systems designed to enforce the will of America's rich on the world, no protest permitted.

A country which has dangled the sword of nuclear holocaust over the world for half a century and claims that someone else invented terrorism is a country out of touch with reality.

Since I speak as a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ, I will go ahead and speak as a disciple of Jesus. This is not a time to say that Christ's gospel of love, and his teaching that we shall "love our enemies" is irrelevant to a world of harsh realities, evil powers and wicked people. It is a time to say just the opposite, namely, that the way of Jesus is the only way which can lead us out of this morass of escalating violence. This is what it means to say that Jesus is the only way. This is what it means to say that Jesus is "the way, the truth, and the life."

Jesus has been thought, by conservative Christians especially, to be the only way to heaven, the only way beyond this world. The truth is, Jesus is the only way through this world. His way of love, his practice of compassion and his call to love our enemies is the only way which will work in human affairs, including the relationships of families, communities, tribes, and nations.

And so we, in the church, have a challenge as never before, to speak the truth which we've been privileged to see. Every church is called to be a peace church. Jesus was right. The way of suffering love is the way to respond to enemies. The way to overcome evil is to overcome it with good. It is the only thing that works. And yes, of course, it is the way that is right -- because it finds resonance in the deepest realities of human soul and conscience, and is a reflection of the heart of God.

See other commentaries on 9/11 www.ecapc.org/september11.asp.