Original Japanese written by Revd. Aizawa
The English below translated from the original Japanese by Heeday
The English translation edited by Rev. Dr. Henry French, ELCA

Greeting from the new chairperson

Revd. Makito John Aizawa
(Rector, Ichikawa St. Mary’s Church, Yokohama Diocese)

The former chairperson of the Executive Committee, Revd. Kiyoshi Nomura, suddenly passed away. This came as a serious shock and loss to all the people around him, especially those engaged in our Project. Let us keep praying for him, that his spirit rest in peace with our Lord.

I have been appointed to take his place. So, here is my greeting to you, dear readers.

At the heart of Christian thought is the idea of “life.” God has given life to each and every one of us, and I believe we are here both to spread the word of how precious life is and to live accordingly. This is precisely what our Lord Jesus taught us.

From this viewpoint, anyone can see that the Fukushima meltdown has proven how nuclear power is opposed to life. One needs no expertise in nuclear power to understand that it is against life. The path we humans have to take is now obvious.

Also, when I hear the word “safe,” I am irritated by two radically different definitions of the same word. When “pro-nukes” use the word in their appeals to restart Japan’s existing nuclear power plants (NPPs), their “safe” is utterly different from the same word used in messages about the preciousness of life. As long as we humans have yet to establish any technology to neutralize radioactive waste from NPPs, running such plants inevitably means producing more and more deadly substances. Also, the plain fact is that we already have sufficient electricity generated for us without NPPs. Furthermore, there are many ways to generate electricity. I believe what we really need to do is to “make up our mind” to abolish nuclear power.