(Eleanor Goldberg/MEDILL)
“We are together with you in this,” Rev. Richard Cizik, right, says of his unequivocal support of Global Zero’s mission to eliminate nuclear weapons. Former CIA officer Valerie Plame, left, and Gen. John Sheehan, center, elucidate the organization’s three-pronged plan.
WASHINGTON – Though the Rev. Richard Cizik’s advocacy efforts led to his resignation from the National Association of Evangelicals, he’ll get the last word July 9 when the producer of “An Inconvenient Truth” releases his latest documentary. The film centers on the danger of nuclear weapons and concludes with Cizik’s admonishing: “If you’ve never changed your feeling about something, pinch yourself. You may be dead.”
Cizik’s participation in “Countdown to Zero,” is just one element of the reverend’s fight to eliminate nuclear materials worldwide. Cizik articulated his views on another high-profile platform Thursday when he joined seven similarly charged supporters at the National Press Club. Speaking on the heels of President Barack Obama’s signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia, the panelists explained how they intend to supplement the administration’s mission.
The perspectives were eclectic—ranging from entertainment industry veterans Lawrence Bender and Jeff Skoll, to former CIA officer Valerie Plame, to controversial Evangelical Richard Cizik. Despite their varying backgrounds, the speakers uniformly support the same movement—Global Zero—established in 2008 to combat the growing global nuclear threat.
Though Cizik was reluctant to offer the crux of his theory, “religion leads politics, not the reverse,” from his panel seat, the reverend did share the impetuses that led him to reevaluate both his philosophy on nuclear weapons and the bible phrases that corroborated it.
“I was a conservative. I didn’t hear it, because maybe I didn’t want to hear it,” Cizik recounted of how he didn’t register President Ronald Reagan’s call to eliminate nuclear weapons in a 1983 speech to the NAE. “I changed. I now view these weapons with a reality and a fear that is rightly in place.”
Today, as an Open Society Institute fellow, Cizik no longer feels pressured to avoid what he once considered taboo topics. Cizik even draws inspiration to bolster his global warming and nuclear weapon elimination advocacy directly from the bible. In quoting the Genesis passage, “We are to care and protect the earth,” the reverend noted, “We read those verses and they never meant anything to us.”