As our world faces the growing threat of nuclear weapons, accelerated by ongoing geopolitical tensions and the development of disruptive technologies, what role must faith communities play so that we can collectively choose human dignity and prevent nuclear war? In this webinar, we will hear voices of faith leaders and movement builders on why we, the faith communities, are crucial partners in creating a world free of nuclear weapons. Speakers will discuss how we can bring in new perspectives and energies to the movement, and how our faith and spiritual traditions help us turn fear and despair into hope and action. 

Speakers include:

Ela Gandhi

South African peace activist and former politician. She served as a Member of Parliament in South Africa from 1994 to 2004, where she aligned with the African National Congress party representing the Phoenix area of Inanda in the KwaZulu-Natal province. 

Reverend Kolade Fadahunsi

Minister of Methodist Church Nigeria, currently serving as the Director of the Christian Council of Nigeria, Institute of Church and Society Ibadan. Rev. Fadahunsi is a commissioner of the World Council of Churches, Commission on International Affairs, as well as the Regional Coordinator of the Ecumenical Water Network Africa.

Emi Kuroda

Emi is the leader of the Soka Gakkai Young Women's Student Division in Japan. She spearheaded the Youth Peace Awareness Survey, an initiative examining youth perspectives on nuclear weapons across affected nations, including Australia, Kazakhstan, Japan, the Marshall Islands, and the United States. She also represented her organization the Third Meeting of States Parties (3MSP) to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and its side events at the UN.

Jacques Linder 

Jacques is a Visiting Instructor at the College of the Holy Cross and a Ph.D. Candidate in Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University. He writes on Catholic anti-nuclear movements from the 1980s to now and teaches about theories of violence and peace, anti-nuclear social movement organizing, Catholic social teaching, and medical ethics. He is a member of Pax Christi USA's Nuclear Disarmament Working Group. 

Siam Tooran

Siam is the Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding Manager at Religions for Peace. Previously he served as a Foreign Affairs Officer, overseeing human rights monitoring, sanctions coordination, and visa-restriction regimes for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India at the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.

Faith communities around the world share a profound and abiding concern for the survival and dignity of humanity. Across traditions, the call to protect life, to pursue peace, and to act as moral conscience in the face of existential threats is a common thread. Nuclear weapons, by their nature, represent an affront to these shared values: their development, testing, production, possession, stockpiling, use, or threat of use would inflict indiscriminate suffering on present and future generations alike.

* This webinar is the first of a three-part series of events on faith and nuclear weapons. There will be two webinars in September and October, as well as an in-person event during the Nuclear Ban Forum on 29 November immediately before the First Review Conference of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.