Jimmy Carter Applied His Faith to the Messiness of Politics. We Should Too

I came into this world the same year Jimmy Carter was elected the 39th president of the United States. Roughly 18 years later, I had the honor of meeting Carter as a first-year college student at Emory University, where he served as a professor. Today, I said my heartfelt farewells to Carter at his state funeral, where I was moved to tears by many of the eulogies, including one written by Gerald Ford before his death and delivered today by Ford’s son. Though they were political rivals in the 1976 election, Carter and Ford later became deep friends — a beacon of hope in our hyperpartisan politics. “Jimmy, I’m looking forward to our reunion,” Ford wrote. “We have much to catch up on.”

When I first met Carter, he was well into his distinguished post-presidential career as a diplomat, humanitarian, and champion of public health, human rights, and global democracy. He and his wife, Rosalynn, had founded the Carter Center in partnership with Emory more than a decade earlier. But despite the other demands on his time, Carter held an annual town hall forum with first-year students and I was deeply impressed by how he responded to our barrage of questions with great humility, candor, intelligence, and often humor. While I don’t recall his specific answers, I still have a vivid memory of walking away from the event convinced that Carter was a person of deep moral character and tireless commitment to justice and peace. 

I was so inspired by Carter’s remarks that I decided to apply for an internship in the conflict resolution program at the Carter Center. I was an intern there for two years and while my interactions with Carter as an intern were rare, I was humbled to contribute to a weekly update about conflicts around the world that was not only shared with Carter himself, but also (I was told) shared with an esteemed group of peace and human rights elders from around the world that Carter helped convene.

Since his death, Carter’s remarkable life and numerous accomplishments have been rightly celebrated, including the Camp David Accords, a historic nuclear weapons treaty, major environmental protection legislation, the release of political prisoners, the near-eradication of  the Guinea worm, aid in conducting free and fair elections in dozens of countries around the world, and decades of volunteer service with Habitat for Humanity. But despite this impressive legacy, what most inspires me about Carter was how he applied his faith to the messiness of politics, both during his time in the White House and in his many years after — a model that we desperately need today in our increasingly polarized and vitriolic politics.

During his campaigns and presidency, Carter was extraordinarily open about how his born-again faith informed his public life. In his 1977 inaugural address, he quoted Micah 6:8 at the outset: “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” He made it clear in that moment that his faith was inseparable from his perspective on political issues and how that would lead him to govern as president. According to the Washington Post, he “once told an interviewer that on eventful days he might pray up to 25 times.” Despite the crushing demands of being president, Carter not only attended church regularly, but also found time to teach Sunday School — something that still amazes me. In a 1978 audio recording, Carter told a Sunday School class: “God will supply all your needs from his unlimited riches and glory through Christ Jesus. That’s a good promise. That’s a good campaign slogan. And it’s so good that a lot of people don’t believe it. But we know it’s true.”

I admire these and other ways that Carter authentically communicated how his faith shaped his values and worldview, all while also upholding a firm commitment to religious pluralism and religious freedom. While no party has a monopoly on faith, today’s Democratic party — which has often been reticent to talk about faith — as well as today’s Republican party — which often acts as though they own faith — could learn a great deal from Carter’s example.

But while Carter’s image as a born-again, Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher who promised never to lie to the American people endeared him to many evangelical voters in 1976, that same faith also inspired Carter to take bold — and sometimes unpopular — stands. His understanding of his faith also led him to stand up to his fellow evangelicals when he disagreed with their theological conclusions. For example, in 2000, he severed his affiliation with the Southern Baptist Convention over its positions on gender equality, saying their ban on female deacons and other policies “violate the basic premises of my Christian faith … I personally feel the Bible says all people are equal in the eyes of God. I personally feel that women should play an absolutely equal role in service of Christ in the church.” He also told the Huffington Post in 2015: “I think Jesus would encourage any love affair if it was honest and sincere and was not damaging to anyone else, and I don’t see that gay marriage damages anyone else.” 

Carter also applied his faith to the politics within the Baptist tradition he and I share. Carter was dismayed by the deep racial and ideological divisions that embroiled the Baptist world, undermining Christian unity and the ability of the church to serve others, particularly the disinherited. In response, Carter used his public profile to convene Baptist leaders and foster unity across Baptist denominations through the New Baptist Covenant, an initiative which brought together 30 organizations representing 20 million Baptists from across the racial and political spectrums. While the initiative made significant inroads in building relationship and unity across the Baptist community, the largest Baptist denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, largely criticized or kept the initiative at arm’s length.

Jimmy Carter’s presidency marked a key turning point in the political allegiances of many white evangelicals in the United States. Carter won the presidency in 1976 with 51 percent of the evangelical vote, only to lose it decisively just four years later to Ronald Reagan. Several factors within Carter’s presidency impacted this shift among voters, including an IRS ruling denying tax exemptions to private religious schools that weren’t racially integrated and foreign policy crises that some voters felt showed Carter to be ineffective at protecting American power in the midst of the Cold War.

But the shift among evangelical voters was also bigger than Carter: After Carter’s presidency, most white evangelicals seemingly left behind the commitment to social justice and peace that infused Carter’s lifelong faith. They elected instead to fuse their faith with a narrow conservative agenda and allegiance to the Republican Party, a shift that intersected with Republicans’ Southern strategy and the then-ascendant Religious Right. Today, these strategies to unite white, Christian voters behind the Republican party have morphed into the current Christian nationalist movement that helped propel President-elect Donald Trump back to the White House. We can only imagine what the trajectory of the country and the evangelical movement would have looked like if white evangelicals had embraced more of Carter’s faith and priorities rooted in Matthew 25.

In Faith: A Journey for All, Carter writes: “Most church members are more self-satisfied, more committed to the status quo and more excluding of dissimilar people than are the political officeholders I have known.” Carter demonstrated throughout his life and career how our faith should be an active one that impacts and even transforms our community and world. He showed how our faith should influence and inspire our politics, rather than the other way around. As our nation and the world honor Carter’s legacy, I hope his steadfast faith will serve as an inspiration for everyone on how we can be salt and light, advancing and protecting dignity and human rights in our broken and hurting world.