Methodists Seek Freeze on A-Arms : Bishops’ Letter Raps Nuclear Deterrence, Reagan’s Star Wars

United Methodist bishops today denounced the policy of nuclear deterrence and called for a verifiable nuclear freeze and the ultimate dismantling of nuclear weapons.

In a unanimous vote, about 100 bishops from the nation’s third-largest denomination also asserted a lack of confidence in the Reagan Administration’s proposed Star Wars space-based defense system and declared unconditioned opposition to any use of nuclear weapons.

The stand was the strongest yet taken by any major religious body against nuclear arms.

The lengthy statement by the United Methodist Church, which has 10 million adherents, goes further than the tough anti-nuclear positions and criticisms of U.S. nuclear policy by the Episcopal Church in 1982 and by U.S. Roman Catholic bishops in 1983. Both conditionally accepted deterrence.

Deterrence Criticized

“Nuclear deterrence has become a dogmatic license for perpetual hostility between the superpowers and for their rigid resistance to significant measures of disarmament,” said the Methodist document, which was two years in preparation.

“Nuclear deterrence has too long been reverenced as the idol of national security,” blinding proponents to “requirements of genuine security,” it said.

Key drafters of the document on Monday acknowledged a conflict between ideal and factual in the statement’s condemnation even of temporary maintenance of nuclear arsenals without demanding their immediate, unilateral elimination.

But they emphasized that the document calls both for reciprocal U.S.-Soviet steps and also unilateral, even risky initiatives to eradicate such weapons.

Congressmen Dissent

A first draft was tentatively approved last fall, arousing criticism in some quarters, including dissent from 12 of about 75 Methodist members of Congress. They said the bishops hadn’t adequately considered the Soviet threat.

Under a committee co-chaired by Bishops C. P. Minnick Jr. of Raleigh, N.C., and C. Dale White of New York, the second, present draft was somewhat revised but not substantially changed.

The document, titled “In Defense of Creation: The Nuclear Crisis and a Just Peace,” says it is not meant to be a consensus opinion of Methodists, but “a pastoral and a prophetic word” for prayerful consideration.

The 1,500-word pastoral letter and accompanying 30,000-word study declare:

“The moral case for deterrence, even as an interim ethic, has been undermined by unrelenting arms escalation. . . . “

The document also declares “complete lack of confidence” in the Reagan Administration’s planned space defenses, calling them provocative, dangerous, obstructing arms agreements and economically draining.

It urges regular U.S.-Soviet consultations, including an annual summit meeting, and calls for a series of steps for dismantling nuclear arms.