The currently emerging debate on the desirability of the U.S. undertaking to deploy an anti-ballistic missile defense system (A.B.M.) threatens to become the next national defense issue to have an impact on national elections. In the past we have all become familiar with real or alleged “bomber gaps,” “missile gaps,” and “conventional gaps.” The basis for all these “gaps” was a deep fear that potential enemies would subject ns to nuclear blackmail, or that our own failure to develop other kinds of military forces would require us to respond to any emergency with an all-out nuclear attack.

In an earlier essay, I pointed out how our obsession with nuclear war had encouraged us to discount the significance of conventional war. I want now to turn to an examination of how specific groups in the U.S. have changed their positions in recent years on the subject of defensive weapons. In doing so I have borrowed the term used in 1960 by Henry Kissinger to describe the shifting arguments of the Air Force and Navy.

Should churches, to the extent that they have economic muscle, use it to attack specific social evils and to support specific ethical ideals? The deepening involvement of religions bodies in social problems has brought them face to face with an old quandry in a new guise.’ Are there really two realms, God's and Mammon's, or is there only one a kingdom of heaven on earth to be established at least in part by judicious combinations of moral right and economic might?

This winter the Council for Christian Social Action of the United Church of Christ opened an office for international development in Washington, D. C.—thc first such function to be sponsored by a Protestant denomination. The new office, established for the purpose of interpreting international development issues to the churches and educating them about the problems involved, will strive for further engagement of the churches in international development projects on three continents. The move reflects a growing trend among religious groups in this country to relate their commitments io organized efforts in international affairs and to take independent concrete actions, where necessary, in the interests of social justice.