(RNS) The destruction one nuclear bomb can wreak is more than horrifying, says megachurch pastor Rob Bell of Grandville, Mich. It’s an insult to God.

“Nuclear weapons are a direct affront to God’s dream of shalom for the world,” Bell said Tuesday (April 28). “Life is beautiful, and nuclear weapons are ugly.”

Bell, the pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church and an up-and-coming voice among young evangelicals, has joined other evangelicals to issue an impassioned call for the elimination of nuclear weapons. The new Two Futures Project is a coalition of prominent Christians who assert that multilateral disarmament is a biblical imperative.

Christians should be in the no-nukes vanguard, Bell and others said, as they face the choice of “a world without nuclear weapons or a world ruined by them.”

“We must eliminate these weapons, and we can eliminate these weapons,” said Tyler Wigg-Stevenson, 31, a Baptist minister who founded the project.

“Who do we think we are to claim authority over life itself and the welfare of future generations? That power belongs to God alone.”

The project aims to help eliminate nuclear weapons through education and political pressure. Younger evangelicals are leading the way with support from older activists such as former Nixon lawyer Chuck Colson and Ron Sider, president of Evangelicals for Social Action.

“I’m part of a generation that believes things can actually change,” said Bell, 38. “Ideas that sound far-fetched and naive can actually become reality.”

The group has strong support from George Shultz, secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan. He recalled being present when Reagan and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev agreed that nuclear weapons ought to be eliminated.

“Maybe an idea that has staying power because of the `ought’ is an idea whose time has come,” Shultz said.

Noting the United States and Russia own more than 90 percent of nuclear weapons, Shultz said he’s encouraged that President Obama recently agreed with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to negotiate a reduction. In a Palm Sunday speech, Obama called for “a world without nuclear weapons.”

The group is not calling for unilateral disarmament but a “multilateral process where the United States takes leadership,” Wigg-Stevenson said.