I was born the same year that Jimmy Carter was elected the 39th President of the United States. Some 18 years later, I had the honor of meeting Carter during my first year of college at Emory University, where he was a professor. Today, I said a heartfelt farewell to Carter at his state funeral. There, I was moved to tears by the many eulogies written by Gerald Ford during his lifetime, including one delivered today by Ford’s son. Though they were political opponents in the 1976 election, Carter and Ford later became deep friends and a beacon of hope in bipartisan politics. “Jimmy, I look forward to seeing you again,” Ford wrote. “We have a lot to catch up on.”
What inspired me most about Carter was how he applied his beliefs to the political turmoil during his time in the White House and for many years afterward.
When I first met Mr. Carter, he was in the midst of a distinguished post-presidential career as a diplomat, humanitarian, and champion of public health, human rights, and global democracy. He and his wife, Rosalyn, had partnered with Emory to establish the Carter Center more than a decade ago. But despite time constraints, Mr. Carter holds an annual town hall forum for first-year students, where he answers our rapid-fire questions with great humility, candor, intelligence, and sometimes I was deeply impressed by the humor in his answers. Although I don’t remember his specific answer, I vividly remember walking away convinced that Carter was a man of deep morality and a tireless commitment to justice and peace. I am.
I was so inspired by Mr. Carter’s remarks that I decided to apply for an internship in the Carter Center’s conflict resolution program. I interned there for two years, and although I rarely had the opportunity to interact with Carter as an intern, I was humbled to contribute to his weekly updates on conflicts around the world. It wasn’t just Carter himself, but (so we were told) that he helped convene, which he shared with respected peace and human rights elders from around the world.
Since his death, Carter’s remarkable life and many accomplishments have been rightly celebrated. These include the Camp David Accords, the historic Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, major environmental protection laws, the release of political prisoners, the near eradication of the Guinea worm, and aid to operations. Free and fair elections in dozens of countries around the world, and decades of volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity. But despite this impressive accomplishment, what inspired me most about Carter was how he applied his beliefs to the political turmoil during his time in the White House and throughout the years that followed. It was. This is a model that we desperately need today in an era of increasingly polarized and vitriolic politics.
During his campaign and during his presidency, Carter was very open about how his born-again faith influenced his public life. At the beginning of his 1977 inaugural address, he quoted Micah 6:8. And all He asks of you is to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. ” In that moment, he made it clear that his faith was inseparable from the perspective of political issues and how it would lead to his rule as president. According to the Washington Post, he “once told an interviewer that he might pray as many as 25 times on an eventful day.” Despite the demanding demands of being president, Carter not only attended church regularly but also found time to teach Sunday school. This still amazes me. In a 1978 audio recording, Carter told his Sunday school class: That’s a good promise. That’s a good campaign slogan. And many people don’t believe it because it’s too good to be true. But we know it’s true. ”
I appreciate these and other ways in which Carter truly communicated how his faith shaped his values and worldview, while upholding his firm commitment to religious pluralism and religious freedom. I admire you. No political party has a monopoly on faith, but both today’s Democratic Party, which has often been reluctant to talk about faith, and today’s Republican Party, which often acts as if they have faith, both follow Carter’s example. You can learn a lot from.
But while Carter’s image as a reincarnated Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher who swore never to lie to the American people in 1976 endeared him to many evangelical voters, that same faith gave Carter a bold, And sometimes encouraged them to take unpopular positions. His understanding of his faith led him to stand up to fellow evangelicals when he disagreed with their theological conclusions. For example, in 2000 he ended his partnership with the Southern Baptist Convention over its position on gender equality, arguing that the organization’s ban on female deacons and other policies “violate the fundamental premises of my Christian faith… I personally feel that the Bible says this is true for everyone.” We are equal in God’s eyes. I personally feel that women should have an absolutely equal role in the service of Christ in the church. ” She also told HuffPost in 2015, “I think Jesus would encourage any kind of love as long as it’s honest and sincere and doesn’t harm others.” I don’t think it will cause any harm.”
Carter also applied his faith to politics, within the Baptist tradition he and I share. Carter was appalled by the deep racial and ideological divisions that engulfed the Baptist world and undermined Christian unity and the church’s ability to serve others, especially the disinherited. In response, Carter used his public profile to convene Baptist leaders, bringing together 30 organizations representing 20 million Baptists across the racial and political spectrum. The New Baptist Convention promoted unity among Baptist denominations. Although the initiative made great strides in building relationships and unity throughout the Baptist community, the largest Baptist denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, largely criticized or distanced itself from the initiative.
Jimmy Carter’s inauguration as president marked an important turning point in the political allegiance of many white evangelicals in the United States. Carter won the presidency in 1976 with 51 percent of the evangelical vote, but lost decisively to Ronald Reagan just four years later. Several factors within President Carter’s term influenced this change among voters. These include an Internal Revenue Service ruling denying tax exemptions to private religious schools that are not racially integrated, and the foreign policy crisis felt by some voters, which led President Carter to assert American power in the midst of a war. This includes being shown to be powerless to protect. Cold War.
But the shift among evangelical voters was greater than for Carter. After Carter became president, most white evangelicals appeared to abandon the commitment to social justice and peace that had been the source of Carter’s lifelong faith. They instead chose to blend their faith with narrowly conservative policies and allegiance to the Republican Party, a shift that intersected with the Republican Party’s Southern strategy and the then-dominant Religious Right. Today, this strategy of uniting white, Christian voters behind the Republican Party has morphed into the current Christian nationalist movement, helping to push President-elect Donald Trump back into the White House. We can only imagine what the trajectory of this country and the evangelical movement would have been if white evangelicals had embraced Carter’s beliefs and priorities more rooted in Matthew 25. .
In Faith: A Journey for All, Carter writes, “Most church members are more complacent, more committed to the status quo, and more likely to exclude people who are different than the politicians I know. Strong,” he wrote. Throughout his life and career, Carter demonstrated that our faith should be an active faith that impacts and even transforms our communities and the world. He showed how our faith should influence and inspire our politics, not the other way around. As our nation and the world celebrate Mr. Carter’s legacy, his unwavering belief in how we can be salt and light, advancing and defending dignity and human rights in a hurting and hurting world. I hope this will be an inspiration to everyone.
Carter was honest about how his faith shaped his values and worldview, while remaining steadfast in his commitment to religious pluralism and religious freedom.
