80 years after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs

This week sees the commemoration of 80 years since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima (6 August) and Nagasaki (9 August). Sheila Norris, Partnership Coordinator for Asia and the Pacific, shares this reflection and prayer.

This destruction and loss of life led directly to Japan's capitulation, sometimes referred to in the West as VJ Day, on 15 August. To mark the occasion, the United Church of Christ in Japan and the Koren Christian Church in Japan have published a Joint Peace Message. Part of this message reads as follows:

"As we mark the 80th anniversary of August 15, 1945, we hope to be able to grasp the significance of the fact that the name of this day is expressed in different words—defeat, end of war, restoration—and what exactly gave rise to these differences. Whose pain was considered in each expression? We would like to be a people who, beyond the communities and nations to which we belong, deeply reflect on whether we had the ears to listen to the voices of all beings who suffered anguish and pain due to the folly of human beings who invited the violence of imperialism, colonial rule and war.

The Cenotaph for the Victims of the Atomic Bomb in Hiroshima is inscribed with the words, “Let all the souls here rest in peace, for we shall not repeat the evil.”

The Methodist Church has consistently held the position that any use of nuclear weapons would be immoral and catastrophic, and that sustaining the threat of indiscriminate destruction is totally contrary to the peace to which Christ calls us.

And so, with the United Church of Christ in Japan, we pray for peace.

A prayer marking the passing of 80 years since the atomic bombings:

We, as children of God and children of peace, continue to pray for the coming of God's kingdom.

We pray that the domination by force of strong governments and peoples over weak ones will come to an end.

We pray for the breaking of the chains of hatred between governments and peoples.

We pray that every weak and desperate individual be granted courage and the power to live.

And we pray for an end, throughout all the earth, of the nuclear threat.

Amen.