THEOLOGY

The NCC is a strictly religious organization that renders unto Cesar (Chavez) and unto the World Council of Churches which, in turn, renders generously unto African terrorists. The NCC has always eagerly dispensed spiritual advice, for example, as early as 1968, it demanded that the US "press for the admission of the Peking government to the UN,...Recognize the government of Cuba and acknowledge the existence of the German Democratic Republic,... Remove restrictions on imports from the Communist countries and on cultural exchanges..." As everyone knows, this type of theology has since been crowned with success, and the NCC is now ready to tackle the next ecclesiastic issue, the appropriate type of nuclear fuel.

The NCC's condemnation was based on the report by a study group it had commissioned; the group contained the same old, tired names (Margaret Mead, Rene Dubos, and the other nuclear semi-literates), and it churned out the same old, tired arguments "the fundamental ethical question of our right to leave to countless future generations a permanent heritage of radioactive waste products."

To which one might reply, with a yawn, that what is permanently left to future generations are the poisons spewed out into the atmosphere and other random locations by the type of power being displaced by nuclear energy; the depleted stocks of oil that future generations might have used as petrochemical feedstocks, had we not burned them in power plant boilers; and the cemeteries of people who were killed by selective moralists who value politics higher than human lives.

Plutonium is easy enough to get rid of: You burn it to give people warmth and light.

But that is not the salient feature of plutonium. As the substance that concentrates a fantastic amount of energy in a minute volume, and as one that is being created even while energy is being produced, it is bound to rank as one of the greatest discoveries ever made by man, a discovery in the class of fire or the wheel (both of which, it is true, were also used for torture).

It is evidently hopeless to expect the members of the NCC governing board (who alone issued the statement) to appreciate the boon to mankind that plutonium represents. But conceivably they could be converted to Christianity.