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Jimmy Carter told me to stop worrying about Donald Trump.
When Carter invited me to meet with him at his office in Atlanta, Just a few weeks after the US presidential election. Shocking the world in 2016, I guess the topic was Donald Trump, after all. I am an evangelical-Christian Trump critic. And now the religious right is gathering power for revenge. Some pro-Trump evangelicals want me fired. Or wanted the religious organization I was working for at the time to be protected. I am fascinated by the implications of a Trump presidency on American democracy. And more importantly To the witness of the church After all, white evangelicals proved to be Trump’s most loyal base. Carter was unfazed.
“These things have happened before,” he said. “Everything has a way back. Things that seem insurmountable and inevitable never are.”
I thought to myself He should know.– Carter had experienced firsthand how quickly political realities were changing.
In 1976, Carter’s Christianity was part of what appealed to some Americans and confused others. One television news anchor assured viewers that Carter’s “born again” did not mean claiming to have received a direct message from God. His appearance seemed to come from nowhere. Newsweek To proclaim the year 1976 as “the year of evangelism”
“The thought of a Baptist in the White House alarms some Americans,” said Duke McCall, who served as president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary during the campaign. presidential candidate in 1976, said, “Maybe they didn’t notice that Harry Truman and Warren G. Harding were Baptist presidents. The problem is Jimmy. Carter was not only a Southern Baptist. But he said the same thing.”
Of course he did.
Carter’s most striking statement in the 1976 campaign was that he could not judge others because he “looked lustfully at many women. I have committed adultery many times in my heart.” Such words sound strange and awkward. To some, the comment seemed quaint and rude. And for some, it’s like an uncle choosing the Thanksgiving table to confess his kinkiest sexual fantasies. For evangelicals in America Such words recall Jesus’ admonition in the Sermon on the Mount that no one (except Jesus Himself) can claim to be without sin. Bearing testimony of one’s sin is common practice in Sunday School classes across the country. That Carter told this story to playboy and include the word Screw and Shed up It’s a different story.
The seminary president’s suggestion that Carter was not merely a Baptist But being a Southern Baptist, he “speaks like a man,” making it impossible for him to determine whether he meant Carter’s self-consciously word of God. or his widely melodious Georgian accent, he speaks “like” us in more ways than one.
Southern Baptists know that the world outside the Bible Belt does not understand our revival. Testimony of conversion or our allusions to the Bible. We also know that the same people make fun of our accents as well. President of the United States One person from the Deep South made an incredible impact on parts of America. Just like in the TV show Heehwa Win an Emmy Award
Carter captured the vote of white evangelicals, winning the Bible Belt (including my home state of Mississippi), an evangelical publishing house. Jimmy Carter’s Miracle– His public witness has been praised. Christianity todayAnd he received support from figures such as Pat Robertson and Richard John Neuhaus.
He then went from a Bible Belt icon to a hated foe of the newly energized religion-focused political network and religious right in four short years, a network that was itself a project. “Evangelicals” of interdenominational churches Biography of Randall Ballmer Redeemershows that Carter represents hybrid evangelicalism. This emphasizes the need for personal conversion and sharing of one’s faith with others. but also politically liberal or moderate on issues such as racial justice, women’s rights, nuclear disarmament, and more.
Clearly, Carter was out of step with most of his fellow white evangelicals. Especially regarding abortion (Which he felt squeamish about but was unwilling to legally limit.) Equal Rights Amendment and other questions about “family values,” although identity politics initially won Carter extraordinary cooperation from his black and white working-class constituency in the South. But the accent and testimony were ultimately not enough.
Ronald Reagan didn’t go to church—much less teach Sunday school—but he did make white evangelicals. Southerners in particular opposed Carter. The Republican evangelical alliance, if any, has only grown ever since.
In fact Carter became the example pro-Trump evangelical leaders offered as to why they supported the three-times-married casino magnate who bragged about his adultery: “Jimmy Carter was a teacher. good sunday school But he won’t stand up for us,” they would say in the 1980s. “Ronald Reagan will” when Trump comes. Almost every instance of his lack of personal character is met with the saying, “We are electing a president. Not a pastor.”
In some ways, this argument Whatever one thinks of Carter, Reagan or Trump, it makes sense and is consistent with the American evangelical heritage. Colonial Baptists never tolerated Thomas. Jefferson or James Madison teaches Sunday School. But I am very happy to partner with them for religious freedom. Rebirth does not grant any special expertise. To whom in matters of governance?
Few evangelicals supported Carter or not. Question his personal integrity. He may have a wish in his heart. But no one could imagine Jimmy Carter quietly paying a porn star. The idea that personal integrity no enough have In the era of Trump It shifts to the idea that personal integrity doesn’t matter at all when Donald Trump Jr. scoffs at that idea. “Turn the other cheek” is a sign of weakness. Biblical references seem to have been lost in this era as well. “The Fornication of My Heart” was to be the last – except this time it seemed lost on the Evangelist. themselves.
I expect my meeting with Carter in 2016 to be a session. Awkward “I told you so” In the end I come from the more conservative theological side of Southern Baptist life. Carter is even more moderate. At the time I was the Public Policy Chair of the Southern Baptist Convention. which Carter loudly demolished in the early 2000s, arguing that leaders “Conservatives” aren’t concerned about Biblical fidelity. but about power I couldn’t have imagined that five years after our meeting. I would also have to abandon my Southern Baptist life.
But the truth of the conversation is the opposite. Carter wanted to know what the mission committee was like. Recalling that he expected to join the “Bold Mission Thrust” program in 1978 but “couldn’t because of work,” he asked about the Baptist Women’s Missionary Union. And talk about the fraternity commission. which is a now defunct Southern Baptist men’s ministry. He talked in detail about the work of Southern Baptist agencies. About the Personality of the Former Southern Baptist Leader Later I told my wife that I couldn’t think of a single member of the Southern Baptist Church. Except for one person who might even know the abbreviations and names he was talking about.
This is a part of evangelical America that no longer exists. Survey after survey shows the rise of non-denominational churches. and the collapse of membership in Christian denominations. Most people in the Southern Baptist Church generally consider themselves dedicated to the gospel and Jesus. But they rarely define their identity around being a Southern Baptist. In fact, there have been some studies—such as that. refer By political scientist Daniel K. Williams – shows that the One of the fastest growing groups of self-identified “evangelicals” who are politically active are those who have never attended church. It’s not just that they want a president and not a pastor in the Oval Office. They don’t need a pastor at all.
Now at Jimmy’s Carter has died. who is our longest serving president I thought about what he said when he finally realized what he wanted to talk about. Back in 2016, “Being beaten in public is hard,” he said. “I want to pray for you.”
I don’t remember what he said in all the prayers. I remember he used all these phrases drawn from Baptist Hymns– I remember he asked God to heal. “Keep my heart close to Jesus,” and I remember at the end he pronounced it. amen The way Southern Baptists from our background would do it: “Aimen.”
If I could go back to that meeting. I would talk to him less about Trump. and speaks more to what we as born again Christians believe about eternal life. I might say that death, like the ups and downs of politics, is not the last word. “Everything has a way of returning,” I might say. “What seems insurmountable and inevitable never is.”
But then again, he already knew this.
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