【正文】 ey such cases, like Prohibition and abortion, the proper role of religion is to appeal to the conscience of the individual, not the coercive power of the there are other questions which are inherently public in nature, which we must decide together as a nation, and wherereligion and religious values can and should speak to our mon issue of nuclear war is a pelling is a moral issue。and to give any effect to the moral values of their creed, people of faith must speak directly about public Catholic bishops and the Reverend Billy Graham have every right to stand for the nuclear freeze, and has every right to stand against must be standards for the exercise of such leadership, so that the obligations of belief will not be debased into an opportunity for mere political to take a stand at all when a question is both properly public and truly moral is to stand in a long and honored of the great evangelists of the 1800s were in the forefront of the abolitionist our own time, the Reverend William Sloane Coffin challenged the morality of the war in John XXIII renewed the Gospel’s call to social Luther King, was the greatest prophet of this century, awakened our nation and its conscience to the evil of racial words have blessed our who now wishes they had been silent? Who would bid Pope John Paul [II] to quiet his voice against the oppression in Eastern Europe, the violence in Central America, or the crying needs of the landless, the hungry, and those who are tortured in so many of the dark political prisons of our time? President Kennedy, who said that “no religious body should seek to impose its will,” also urged religious leaders to state their views and give their mitment when the public debate involved ethical drawing the line between imposed will and essential witness, we keep church and state separate, and at the same time we recognize that the City of God should speak to the civic duties of men and are four tests which draw that line and define the , we must respect the integrity of religion of conscience should be careful how they deal in the word of their our own history, religion has been falsely invoked to sanction prejudiceeven slaveryto condemn labor unions and public spending for the believe that the prophecy, ”The poor you have always with you” is an indictment, not a I respectfully suggest that God has taken no position on the Department of Educationand that a balanced budget constitutional amendment is a matter of economic analysis, and not heavenly values cannot be excluded from every public issue。in some other day or decade, they could be the members of the Thomas Road Baptist , in 1976 I regarded it as unworthy and unAmerican when some people said or hinted that Jimmy Carter should not be president because he was a born again must never judge the fitness of individuals to govern on the bas[is] of where they worship, whether they follow Christ or Moses, whether they are called “born again” or “ungodly.” Where it is right to apply moral values to public life, let all of us avoid the temptation to be selfrighteous and absolutely certain of if that temptation ever es, let us recall Winston Churchill’s humbling description of an intolerant and inflexible colleague: “There but for the grace of God goes God.”Third, in applying religious values, we must respect the integrity of public that debate, faith is no substitute for may oppose the nuclear freeze for what they regard as moral have every right to argue that any negotiation with the Soviets is wrong, or that any acmodation with them sanctions their crimes, or that no agreement can be good enough and therefore all agreements only increase the chance of do not believe that, but it surely does not violate thestandard of fair public debate to say does violate that standard, what the opponents of the nuclear freeze have no right to do, is to assume that they are infallible, and so any argument against the freeze will do, whether it is false or nuclear freeze proposal is not unilateral, but bilateralwith equal restraints on the United States and the Soviet nuclear freeze does not require that we trust the Russians, but demands full and effective nuclear freeze does not concede a Soviet lead in nuclear weapons, but recognizes that human beings in each great power already have in their fallible hands the overwhelming capacity to remake into a pile of radioactive rubble the earth which God has is no morality in the mushroom black rain of nuclear ashes will fall alike on the just and the then it will be too late to wish that we had done the real work of this atomic agewhich is to seek a world that is neither red nor am perfectly prepared to debate the nuclear freeze on policy grounds, or moral we should not be forced to discuss phantom issues or false only deflect us form the urgent task of deciding how best to prevent a planet divided from being a planet it does not advance the debate to contend that the arms race is more divine punishment than human problem, or that in any event, the final days are Pope John said two decades ago, at the opening of the Second Vatican Council: “We must beware of those who burn with zeal, but are not endowed with much sense...we must disagree with the prophets of doom, who are always forecasting disasters, as though the end of the earth was at hand.” The message which echoes across the years is very clear: The earth is still here。many of them are both civil libertarians and believers, who think that families should pray more at home with their children, and attend church and synagogue more people are not sexist because they stand against abortion, and they are not murderers because they believe in free does it help anyone’s cause to shout such epithets, or to try and shout a speaker downwhich is what happened last April when was hissed and heckled at I am doubly grateful for your courtesy here this was not Harvard’s finest hour, but I am happy t