BY Ian Dunn | April 6 | 
1 COMMENT 
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Christians rally at Faslane for Easter witness prayer vigil
Nearly 200 representatives from Christian churches converged on Faslane last Saturday to be told by Bishop Joseph Toal of Argyll and the Isles that the Trident nuclear weapon system should not remain in Scotland.
Bishop Toal said that in the past he had tended towards a ‘pragmatic acceptance’ of nuclear weapons but this visit had changed his mind. “I see myself then as somebody who has come here to find out more about the campaign for nuclear disarmament from those who are veterans in protesting against their presence and the threat they pose to humanity,” he said. “Along with you then I accept the call to proclaim the message that the truth of peace does require a change from easy acceptance of these weapons of mass destruction towards a commitment to strive for their removal.”
The second Easter Witness for Peace organised by SCANA (Scottish Clergy Against Nuclear Arms) saw Christians gathering to make clear churches’ opposition to weapons of mass destruction.
Other church leaders who addressed the crowd included the Rev Alan Macdonald, former Moderator of the Kirk’s General Assembly, David Mumford, Dean of the Scottish Episcopal Church’s Brechin Diocese, Kathy Galloway, former Iona Community leader and now head of Christian Aid in Scotland and Bruce Kent, former head of CND and a regular protester at Faslane. The event was chaired by David McLachlan of SCANA, with worship led by Rev Ainslie Walton, also of SCANA.
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In the same way that Bishop Toal speaks of moving from a ‘pragmatic acceptance’ of nuclear weapons to a ‘commitment to strive for their removal’, I have moved over a period of years from being appalled at their existence to seeing that there might yet be an extraordinary gift hidden inside of the whole nuclear subject.
Somewhere along the road of being bothered and bewildered by the enormous amount of energy locked up in the tiny atoms, I noticed how the scientific method only looks at the particle world and the processes of nuclear fission from the outside: and I made it my business to look at this same subject from the inside.
The difference is profound. And to try and communicate what I believe is there for us to see, I have prepared a web site nuclear4christians dot com wherein I have had the temerity to imagine Christ speaking about the universal nature of nuclear power.
I would add that I was able to see the spiritual nature of the nuclear processes because my science-addled mind had been softened up by my children, who for a few years showed me how to look innocently at phenomena, and see new things instead of old stuff.
I’m of the opinion that further along this path are opportunities to create a spiritual approach, in the first instance, to radiation, and the radioactive waste materials: and if they respond, then the weapons also begin to look vulnerable, more than we have so far cared or dared to consider.
Thanks all the same to those who create the peace vigils, while I stay home.
Good wishes. Ian Turnbull. Findhorn.