The page one story in Sunday’s New York Times is one that I have been waiting for for a long time. “The Long Arc of a Nuclear-Free Vision” is about the vision for a “nuclear free world” of the president of the United States, Barack Obama. It traces how President Obama’s commitment to seek a world free of the terrible threat of nuclear weapons dates back to at least his college days, that it has stayed with him ever since, and is now leading to a concrete strategy to gradually reduce and ultimately eliminate the world’s nuclear arsenals. It is an important story that should be widely read. The story says that:

In the interview, Mr. Obama noted that he was too young to “remember having to do drills under the desk.” But as a student “interested broadly in foreign policy,” he recalled, he focused on “a central question: how would the United States and the Soviet Union effectively manage these nuclear arsenals, and were there ways to dial down the dangers that humanity faced?”

I do not think he could have imagined as a college student writing papers and articles that the day would come when he would sit face to face with the president of Russia and negotiate around this question.  Even more surprising: that he has been successful. This morning’s breaking news is that the U.S. and Russia have agreed to cut their stockpiles of strategic nuclear weapons by up to one-third – to as few as 1,500 each.

The Times accurately reports that “No previous American President has set out a step-by-step agenda for the elimination of nuclear arms.” President Obama clearly says he will never compromise the security of the American people, but sees that security clearly tied to success in negotiating key upcoming nuclear treaties and a process that will finally abolish nuclear weapons. The hopeful article makes clear that Obama understands the moral and political reality that we finally won’t be able to deal with the nuclear threats of states like North Korea and Iran unless we are ourselves leading by example in a gradual process of abolishing all nuclear weapons. As he put it:

It’s naïve for us to think that we can grow our nuclear stockpiles, the Russians continue to grow their nuclear stockpiles, and our allies grow their nuclear stockpiles, and that in that environment we’re going to be able to pressure countries like Iran and North Korea not to pursue nuclear weapons themselves.

Obama embraces the nuclear abolitionist agenda of former Cold Warriors like former Secretary of State George Shultz, former National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, former Senator Sam Nunn, and former Secretary of Defense William Perry. During his presidential campaign Obama told a cheering crowd of Berliners that this is the moment to seek “the peace of a world without nuclear weapons.” But there are hardline nuclear weapons apologists who are already pushing back hard against the president’s stand, and the article concludes that this could be one of the toughest fights of this presidency.

As I read the article, both excitement and expectation were rising in my head and heart. I had a clear mental picture of faith community leaders coming to Washington to make their faith clear about nuclear weapons. Maybe it’s time to take our denominational statements about nuclear weapons seriously, and now shout them from the roof tops. Maybe it’s time to make ourselves clear that following Jesus is simply incompatible with the use of nuclear weapons. After so much protest and nonviolent civil disobedience over the past decades in response to nuclear weapons and their threat, the faith community could be a catalyst and decisive force for finally making some progress on one of the fundamental moral issues of our time. This is a fight we need to make.