Joint interfaith statement calls for world free of nuclear weapons

Statue of St Agnes from ruins of Nagasaki Cathedral after the bomb - displayed at UN Headquarters. Photo: Marcelo Schneider/WCC

The following joint Interfaith statement on the occasion of the 11th Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was released this week. 109 organisations signed the document.

We, as people of faith, join in solidarity with our voices to call upon the leaders of the world to rescue the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) from crisis and to honour its deepest commitment: creating a world free from nuclear weapons.

On March 5, 1970, the NPT entered into force-emerging following the horrors of the previous decades. The Treaty rests on an extraordinary promise: non-nuclear-weapon states pledged not to acquire nuclear weapons, while nuclear-weapon states committed under Article VI to pursue negotiations in good faith toward complete disarmament.

Fifty-six years later, the Treaty's most fundamental commitment remains unfulfilled. We see the NPT unraveling and a proliferation crisis brewing. The obligation to negotiate disarmament has been deferred, diluted, and in many cases openly dismissed. All nuclear-armed states are modernising their arsenals with new delivery systems and doctrines that lower the threshold for use. The moral authority of the Treaty depends upon the credibility of the disarmament commitment. That credibility is now in crisis.

The Urgency and Risk We Face Today

With the Doomsday Clock set to 85 seconds to midnight, we are now the closest we have ever been to catastrophe. Many who hold power today do not fully grasp how near we have already come to nuclear war. We have survived not because our systems are foolproof, but because we have been lucky. And luck, as the UN Secretary-General said, is not a strategy.

Underlying all of this is a spiritual crisis rooted in the normalization of violence and war as instruments for resolving conflict between peoples and nations. When armed force is treated as a first resort, when military spending eclipses investment in human development, when entire populations are taught to accept the threat of annihilation as a condition of their security, our moral imagination has failed. The acceptance of apocalyptic violence as the final arbiter of disputes among nations is not simply a strategic posture. It is a spiritual sickness-one that every faith tradition we represent has named, lamented, and called its followers to resist.

Our Faith Calls Us to Act

It is our conviction, held in common across our diverse faith traditions, that life is a precious gift. And alongside that great gift comes the responsibility to both care for each other and for this good Earth entrusted to us. Nuclear weapons represent a failure on both counts-a betrayal of our duty to protect one another and to safeguard the planet that sustains all life.

We affirm that genuine security is built on justice, on mutual care, on the recognition that no nation's safety can rest on another nation's annihilation. We pray that the future of your children and ours is safeguarded and the fear of annihilation becomes a shadow of the past.

And so we hold hope in this crisis-hope as a bold conviction that the choices of this generation can determine whether the consequences of nuclear escalation are carried into future generations or halted in our time.

Our Call to Leaders Around the World

We call on our leaders to reaffirm the spirit of the NPT as an urgent and binding commitment. We recognise the depth of the divisions among NPT member states. But we refuse to accept paralysis. We call for States to engage in real dialogue, moving beyond entrenched positions, to find the common ground of our shared survival. The challenges are numerous and complex. Yet, we hold hope that our leaders have the courage to prevent another nuclear catastrophe.

On the occasion of the 11th NPT Review Conference, we call on our leaders to honour two commitments above all. First, recommit to Article VI-not in rhetoric, but in action: with verifiable reductions, with a moratorium on new warhead development, with a return to negotiations that includes all nuclear-armed states. The grand bargain of the NPT cannot survive if one half of it is perpetually deferred. Second, center human security in nuclear policy. Decisions about nuclear weapons must be grounded not in the security of states alone, but in the shared security of all people.

Faith, conscience and commitment to truly inclusive peace compel us to carry with us the voices of the hibakusha, the downwinders, and all global communities who have experienced and borne witness to the suffering that nuclear weapons inflict. We carry with us the hopes of our children, who deserve to inherit a world where the threat of extinction does not hang over every cradle.

We hold you in the Light. And we pray for you to be a beacon to your children and our children showing the path toward a better future. You have the power to begin creating a world free from nuclear weapons. We are asking you to use it.

Endorsing Organizations:

AIDL International Foundation
All Souls Church, Unitarian, Washington, DC
All Souls Nuclear Disarmament Task Force
Alliance Internationale pour la Défense des Droits et des Libertés (AIDL)
Alliance of Baptists
American Friends Service Committee
Anglican Pacifist Fellowship
ASSOCIAZIONE COMUNITA' PAPA GIOVANNI XXIII
Australian Religious Response to Climate Change
beHuman
Cameroon Youths and Students Forum for Peace (CAMYOSFOP)
Center for Peace Education, Miriam College
Centro de Estudios Ecuménicos, México
Charter for Compassion
Christian CND
Christian Conference of Asia (CCA)
Church and Peace
Claretian Missionaries - Misioneros Claretianos
Columban Center for Christian-Muslim Relations
Comisión General Justicia y Paz
Community of Christ
Community of Christ - British Isles Mission Centre
Community of Christ - Western Europe Mission Center
Community of Christ Pacific, Canada, and Europe Field Team
Community of Christ USA
Community of Christ, Australia Mission Centre
Congregation de Notre Dame
Congregation of the Mission
Congregations of Saint Joseph
Cosmic Community Centre,Karickam . P. O, Kerala, India
Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, USA
Dominican Leadership Conference
Dominican Sisters ~ Grand Rapids
Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa
EarthDiverse Trust
ECPAT Guatemala
Ethiopian Evangelical Mekane Yesus Church - EECMY
Franciscan Peace Center, Clinton, Iowa
Gandhi Development Trust
Global Security Institute
Independent Catholic News ( ICN)
Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary - Loreto Generalate
Interfaith Council of Contra Costa County
Interfaith Council of Southern Nevada
JPIC Commission Union of Superiors General (USG) & The International Union of Superiors General (UISG)
Justice and Peace Scotland
Justice For All
Martha Justice Ministry, Sisters of St. Martha, Antigonish
Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic, Inc.
Medical Mission Sisters, Unit North America
Moruroa e Tātou NGO
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
NGO Committee on Disarmament, Peace and Security
North Carolina Council of Churches
Orcas Island Worship Group (Quaker)
Order of Lutheran Franciscans (OLF)
Oregon Unitarian Universalist Voices for Justice
Pace e Bene
Pacific Conference of Churches
Passionists International
Pastoral Social, Iglesia Anglicana de México
Pax Christi England & Wales
Pax Christi Flanders (Belgium)
Pax Christi International
Pax Christi Long Island (New York)
Pax Christi New York State
Pax Christi Pilipinas
Pax Christi Scotland
Pax Christi USA
Peace Action Group, 1st Unitarian Church, Portland OR
Peace Movement Aotearoa
Phoenix Settlement Trust
Presbyterian Church (USA), Office of Public Witness
Presbyterian Peace Fellowship
PROCLADE Internazionale
Quaker United Nations Office
Quakers in Britain
Quakers Queensland
Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary
Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia
Rissho Kosei Kai of New York Buddhist Peace Center
School Sisters of Notre Dame
Shepparton Interfaith Network
Sisters of Charity
Sisters of Charity Federation
Sisters of Charity Halifax
Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, Office of Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation
Sisters of Charity of Nazareth Congregational Leadership
Sisters of Charity of New York
Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Mercy
Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill United States Province
Sisters of St. Francis, Clinton, Iowa
Sisters of the Good Samaritan
Soka Gakkai International
The Gandhi Foundation (UK)
The Grail
The Religious Diversity Centre in Aotearoa New Zealand Trust
The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand
The Swedish Society of Friends, Quakers
The United Methodist Church - General Board of Church and Society
Unitarian Universalists for a Just Economic Community
Vision GRAM-International
Voices for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons
Waikato Interfaith Council
Wellspring Community of Australia inc
Wings for Amazon Project
World Council of Churches
World Yoga Community
Yearly Meeting of Aotearoa New Zealand Te Hāhi Tūhauwiri