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Articles, Prayers, and Speeches by Dr. Thompson
 

How Do We Get to the Future?

Freedom of Religion - Speech at Four Freedoms Dinner, June 2007

Climate Action - Greening California Panel, March 19, 2007 

Death Penalty Focus Award Speech  - Death Penalty Focus Group, March 2, 2007

Moral Imperatives around Global Warming - May 8, 2006

150th Year Prayer for the World - April 28, 2006

Anger and Friendship - May 25, 2005

Church and World - May 25. 2005

Church and World - by Dr. David Thompson

Should the church support stem cell research or condemn it? What about the militarization of space? What about the war in Iraq? Should the church support the war or remain silent or deplore it?

According to Bill Moyer the Washington rules are that everyone is either Left or Right, Republican or a Democrat, a liberal or a conservative. Then comes spin. All the above issues can be spun and are. Should the church care? Or should the church stay in a special space of total neutrality? Is it even possible to separate the church from politics any more or have they become fused somehow? The Constitution clearly separates church and state. The Fathers of the Constitution saw that conflict between the religions would be inevitable unless they were. That is at the heart of the American experiment.

But today that clear separation is being eroded.

Political decisions have ethical implications. Ethics lie at the heart of the world’s great religions. They have something to say. How are they to do this?

One of the ways is to identify the issues. It is often the case that the truth lies in the middle rather than at the edges. The trouble with the Washington rules is that non partisan cooperation becomes too rare.

The Bible is concerned with Justice. Justice is to ‘flow down like a river and righteousness as a mighty stream’.

Appointing partisan judges is a mistake. A judge needs to be absolutely impartial. Political affiliation and ideology need to be given up entirely when on the bench. How else is this check and balance in the Constitution to be realized?

Stem cell research needs to be assessed in the courts with input from world ethicists. This sort of issue needs to be resolved by prayer and a serious ethical quest for what is the most loving thing to do all things considered. War needs to be assessed as a tool to bring about peace. If we invested in peace as we do in war we might get somewhere and keep space for peaceful purposes. Amen!