The leaders of Scotland’s main denominations have condemned the Scottish Government’s plans to renew its Trident nuclear weapons programme.

In a joint letter, they said nuclear weapons were undermining the security of the whole world and were inconsistent with ‘just war’ theories.

“Christian moral reasoning leads us away from violence towards loving relationships with others. Violence is expressed in threat as well as in deed,” they said.

“The indiscriminate nature of nuclear weapons makes it impossible to justify them as weapons of war as their effect cannot be considered as either limited or proportionate.

“Therefore, the very possession of nuclear weapons is unjust and thus wrong.”

They called instead on the Government to use the billions needed to replace Trident on helping the poor and vulnerable. They argued that tackling injustice, poverty and inequality was a more effective way of creating a peaceful world.

“At a political level that transformation means choosing to spend money on changing the lives of the poor and oppressed and not on nuclear weapons,” they said.

The letter was signed by leaders of the main denominations, including the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Most Rev David Chillingworth, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Rt Rev Bill Hewitt, and head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien.

Their challenge comes ahead of an international conference in New York next month to review the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which demands that countries prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

The Church leaders urged voters to use the forthcoming elections as an opportunity to make clear to parliamentary candidates that they should “choose life over death” and the alleviation of poverty over the replacement of Trident.

They added: “The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead demonstrates that security comes from faith in the vulnerability of God in Christ and not in any human creation.”

Scottish Church leaders have pressed the Government for years to abandon plans to renew Trident. The Scottish Government wants to replace Trident with a fleet of Vanguard Trident submarines fitted with a new generation of nuclear missile carriers.

The Church of Scotland and the Catholic Church in Scotland recently signed up to a World Council of Churches campaign calling on governments to drastically reduce their nuclear arsenals.

The ‘Now is the Time’ campaign calls upon governments to take steps towards securing a nuclear free world by making the use or possession of nuclear weapons illegal. It advocates non-proliferation and asks that all bomb-grade material to be placed under international control.