This week a powerful warning was given to our world. For the people who operate what is called ‘The Doomsday Clock’ moved the hands two minutes nearer to midnight, to three minutes to midnight: that is, in their view, three minutes before the end of human time. The Doomsday Clock is one aspect of the work of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: a group which looks into the global security and public policy issues related to the dangers posed by nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, climate change, merging technologies and diseases. They began the Clock in 1947, deeply concerned about the nuclear arms race and tensions between the then Soviet Union and the Western bloc of nations. At that time the hands of the Clock were set at seven minutes before midnight and they have been moved up and down, every January, ever since. The best time it ever registered was 17 minutes before midnight, in January 1991, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when the superpowers reached agreement on nuclear arms reductions. Since then the hands have steadily moved nearer to midnight. Three minutes to midnight has only been reached twice before, and only in 1953, at two minutes to midnight, was there a worse assessment of our world’s situation.
Is the Doomsday Clock right do you think? Are these Atomic Scientists correct in saying that: ‘World leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe. These failures of political leadership endanger every person on Earth.’ ‘In 2015,’ the group says, ‘unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity.’ Recent concerns might include the growing dislocation of Russia; the heightened tensions between India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers; struggles in the Middle East and the unprecedented levels of terrorism alert across the world. Not a very happy situation is it? So is the end of the world near?
Our lectionary readings today all reflect a similar urgency and challenge to human beings to respond to the signs of their times. They remind us that we are called to recognise God and to participate actively in the work of God’s Kingdom, God’s shalom, God’s longing for peace and love, and justice. So how will we respond to the signs and challenge of our times?...
Is the Doomsday Clock right do you think? Are these Atomic Scientists correct in saying that: ‘World leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe. These failures of political leadership endanger every person on Earth.’ ‘In 2015,’ the group says, ‘unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity.’ Recent concerns might include the growing dislocation of Russia; the heightened tensions between India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers; struggles in the Middle East and the unprecedented levels of terrorism alert across the world. Not a very happy situation is it? So is the end of the world near?
Our lectionary readings today all reflect a similar urgency and challenge to human beings to respond to the signs of their times. They remind us that we are called to recognise God and to participate actively in the work of God’s Kingdom, God’s shalom, God’s longing for peace and love, and justice. So how will we respond to the signs and challenge of our times?...
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