August 6, 2024
The Hiroshima Peace Memorial, also known as the Genbaku Dome, is the only building that survived near the center of the first atomic bomb explosion on Aug. 6, 1945. It stands there today, preserved just as it was right after the blast. (Photo by Thomas Goetz)
Next year will mark the 80th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What should we mull over as we remember these bombings from our vantage point today?
As I considered this question, I was transported back to my high school’s freshman history classroom. I remember the teacher offering a lesson on the bombings as we neared the end of a unit on World War II. After she ended the presentation portion of the class, she turned to ask us to think about the U.S. military’s decision for ourselves. Were the bombings justified? Should we endorse them today? I remember feeling the difficulty of the question. The war, as we had been learning, was horrific and had spread like a cancer across much of the world. But the bombings were also horrific, as the pictures of the bomb sites and civilian victims we saw in our textbook made clear. I remember that lesson to this day because out of a classroom of perhaps 20-something students, I was the only one who thought that the bombings were a grave and immoral mistake.
After taking the straw poll, the teacher led a class discussion so that we could share our reasoning and debate with one another. What did my classmates and I so sharply disagree about? My classmates almost universally shared a line of reasoning that the American executive and military used to justify their decision at the time: The bombings, while tragic, were necessary to bring an end to the war and prevent even more immense loss of life. This rationale has come to occupy a privileged place in our civic memory of the war. But something about this way of thinking struck me then as deeply misguided. The loss of life it aimed to avoid was commendable, but it justified exchanging the targeting of military combatants for the indiscriminate murder of civilians — especially women and children. Wasn’t this something we should avoid at all costs?
In the years since, I have come to think that what separated my decision from that of my classmates is a deeper commitment to thinking not only about the justice of a desired outcome but also the justice of the way in which we seek it out. What was so unjustifiable and so deeply unjust about the nuclear bombings of Japan was that the bombings themselves were unjust, since they indiscriminately targeted cities and civilians, treating them as enemy combatants. In this, I think we must stick to Paul’s admonishment in Romans. He takes up the question that is right at the heart of the decision to resort to nuclear weapons: Should we do evil that good may come? We would do well to remember Paul’s unequivocal response that Christians may not entertain such moral calculuses.
Dr. Andrew J. Peterson, Associate for Peacemaking, Presbyterian Peacemaking Program
Daily Readings
Today’s Focus: Hiroshima Day
Let us join in prayer for:
PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Roberto Morales, Research Analyst, Research Services, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)
Gad Mpoyo, Associate, Southeast Region, 1001 New Worshiping Communities, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Let us pray
God of the past and future, all things belong to you. As we grapple with the world we have inherited, send us your reconciling Spirit. Help us to recon with the grave scars of wrong, which we bear from prior generations. Grace us with your peace. And give us the courage to look strenuously and searchingly for your justice, no matter how unpopular or difficult it may seem. Amen.
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