PEOPLE will gather tomorrow in a religious building to thank God for weapons.     

The building in question is not a fundamentalist mosque. It is not a way-out church in the US calling on its members to bomb abortion clinics. 

It is Westminster Abbey, a prominent Christian church in the centre of London and one of Britain’s most prominent tourist attractions.     
The abbey is holding a service to “recognise 50 years of continuous at-sea deterrent.” 

In this context, “deterrent” is a euphemism for nuclear submarines.     
So what’s surprising about part of the Establishment celebrating the weapons controlled by the British ruling class? 

On one level, nothing. In other ways, quite a lot.

It’s fair to say that many British churches are more progressive on nuclear weapons than on most other issues. 

Most British Christian denominations have explicit policies opposing the renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system. 

These include the Church of Scotland, Methodist Church, Baptist Union of Great Britain, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), the Presbyterian Church of Wales and the Union of Welsh Independents. 

A majority of Roman Catholic bishops in Britain also oppose Trident. Given the Church of England’s status as the established church, it’s perhaps not surprising its name is missing from the list. 

But they too have come far in recent years. In July, their General Synod voted overwhelmingly to welcome the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and to urge the British government to respond positively to it.     

So why is Westminster Abbey hosting the service? The answer lies in the chequered history of Christianity.     

Westminster Abbey is a “royal peculiar.” This bizarre and anachronistic term means that the abbey’s leadership is accountable directly to Elizabeth Windsor rather than the Bishop of London or the Church of England generally.     

Many Christians are angry about the nuclear service at the abbey. Over 180 clergy, including several bishops, have signed a statement against it. 

Thousands more Christians, with support from people of other religions and none, have also expressed opposition.     

What we are seeing is a dramatisation of an ongoing conflict — between the use of the church as an instrument of the ruling class, and a vision of the church as a community of resistance to injustice.     
Ever since the Roman empire domesticated Christianity, churches have been a site of struggle between the powerful and the powerless. 

Rulers have used churches to justify and defend their power. But there has always been resistance from grassroots Christians. 

I share their view that loyalty to the Kingdom of God, and love for humanity as a whole, trumps loyalty to the world’s governments, nation states, armies and corporations.     

Westminster Abbey’s spokespeople have insisted that the service is not to celebrate or “give thanks” for nuclear weapons. 

This is undermined by their own description of the service.     

The Abbey’s website describes it as “a service to recognise the commitment of the Royal Navy to effective peace-keeping through the deterrent over the past 50 years and to pray for peace throughout the world.”     

With this statement, the abbey has adopted a clear position in favour of Trident. The use of the word “deterrent” implies a belief in the dubious claims made by apologists for weapons of mass destruction. 

The abbey claims not only that the navy is committed to peacekeeping but that this peacekeeping has been “effective.”

It says nothing, of course, about Britain’s armed forces’ role in invading and bombing Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya or the Balkans, or fuelling military tension through Nato, or recruiting vulnerable teenagers from situations of poverty to go and fight other poor people elsewhere in the world — before dumping them back into poverty in Britain.

To say that you will “recognise” something, in a way that describes it as a good thing, is implicitly to celebrate it. 

In the context of worship, it is implicitly to give thanks for it. Having said that, this service cannot be meaningfully described as an act of Christian worship. 

It involves trusting not in God’s love and power working through the world, but in military might.

In theological terms, this is idolatry: putting our trust in something we have made for ourselves.

The service is at noon tomorrow. It is by “invitation only,” but there will be protests outside from 11am (if not earlier) organised by CND and Christian CND, with support from groups including the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Peace Pledge Union and the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship.

Around Britain and the world, other radical Christians and their allies will be tweeting, praying, preaching and protesting at the time that the service starts.

We are challenging both the obscenity of nuclear weapons and the co-option of religion to uphold oppression and violence. 

As a supposedly Christian church champions military idolatry, I cannot help but conclude that to non-violently challenge, prevent, delay or disrupt this service would be a profoundly moral and Christian act.

Symon Hill is a Christian author and campaigns manager of the Peace Pledge Union, which includes people of several religions and of none.