Jimmy Carter, pioneer of the religious right

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Nearly every tribute to Jimmy Carter is necessarily encumbered with caveats about Carter, the president. While it is true that the “Reagan revolution” provided America with needed jolts of patriotic and economic strength, Carter, our 39th president, consistently exhibited traits that public figures of our own times would do well to model.  

Much about the infamous “Carter years” is rightly remembered with disdain. Those alive during the late 1970s will remember mortgage rates in the teens, the Iranian hostage crisis and long lines at the gas pumps. As has been well documented, many of Carter’s policies and his handling of many issues during his presidency failed to improve the country’s economy or the zeitgeist of its people. Name the issue (energy, the economy, welfare, international relations, terrorism, bipartisanship, et. al) and President Carter struggled with it.

But many — including myself — deeply admired him as a human being, respected him as our president and fondly remember his earnest smile and friendly wave. I believe he was a genuinely good human being and because of his generally virtuous nature, Carter was a politician who didn’t like to play politics. Washington insiders didn’t like working with him and international leaders didn’t seem to respect him.

JIMMY CARTER, 39TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, DEAD AT 100

Today, our nation suffers under another “naive in chief” (though President 39 was, I believe, a man of vastly superior character to 46). The late-night comics have gotten some easy laughs riffing on how Jimmy Carter must have been thrilled with the Biden presidency. But unlike Biden, President Carter was, I believe, a benign presence. 

He could have been the man next door from just about any neighborhood in heartland America — the one who showed the neighborhood kids how to fix their bikes. His persona was pretty much identical to that of my dad’s friends from that era, an approachable grown-up you knew you could trust and who would help if he could. Like Teddy Roosevelt, who invested time serving Christian endeavors post-White House, Mr. Carter went from meeting with world leaders to … teaching Sunday School.

President Jimmy Carter addressing a town meeting. American flag is hung in background.

When Carter took office in January 1977, America was in the aftermath of Watergate, the Vietnam War’s end and the sexual and social upheavals of the 1960s were engendering a “new normal.” The 1970s were a time when guilt over sin would be scorned in prime-time (thanks, Norman Lear) and the legal cords tethering America to the moral foundations of Western civilization would begin to be severed (thanks, ACLU). 

Regarding the years of change shaping the nation Carter was to inherit, a 1964 Time article made these observations about the emerging mindset of many Americans:

“Pleasure is considered an almost Constitutional right rather than a privilege, in which self-denial is increasingly seen as foolishness rather than virtue. While science has reduced the fear of long-dreaded earthly dangers, skepticism has diminished the fear of divine punishment. In short, the Puritan ethic, so long the dominant moral force in the U.S., is widely considered to be dying, if not dead, and there are few mourners.”

Into this milieu, candidate Jimmy Carter announced that he was a “born-again Christian” (a concept that many American moderns were learning of, no doubt, for the first time). Affable and honest, Carter injected something into public discourse that would change American politics forever: an evangelical Christian testimony. 

Using words from the Gospel of John, chapter three, candidate Carter talked about being “born again,” and suddenly the term was part of the American vernacular. General Motors advertised a “Born Again Oldsmobile.” Updated editions of books and TV shows were marketed as being “born again.” Pundits mocked and commentators opined, but the conversation was irretrievably now in the process: politics and religion were mixed and Jimmy Carter had been the catalyst.

From left to right: Former Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter. (HUM Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Numerous other conservative Christian leaders would weigh in on the battle to preserve America’s Judeo-Christian foundation. And while Jimmy Carter’s party is now associated with everything but “the religious right,” let the record show that Carter affirmed what no Democrat today would dare say: God, Jesus Christ and the Bible were the cornerstones of his life, and they shaped his convictions and behaviors. 

Jimmy Carter exhibited “the fruit of the Spirit” (c.f. Galatians 5:22-23). Carter seemed to exemplify Christ’s words in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10:44: “Whoever will be the greatest among you will be the servant of all.” Carter carried himself as a gentleman. While campaigning for the election of 1980, both Carter and Reagan embodied characteristics pretty much unknown to American politics today: they were respectful and dignified and even their sparring in debates was instructive and watchable.

The 1970s were a time in which many negatives were set in motion that would yield tragic consequences for decades to come (the rise of modern Islamic fundamentalism, Marxism’s rebirth in Europe, post-modernism in classrooms on both sides of the Atlantic and the accelerated breakdown of the family throughout the West). 

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But there is no denying that from that same era came one who exemplified some of the best things about America and American leaders: a Georgia peanut grower, tilling the soil of a family farm, could become governor of his state, then leader of his nation. True to his wife, Carter raised four children and would later raise roofs over the heads of underprivileged people. For many years, Carter’s standard look in public was to wear a carpenter’s nail apron as he swung a hammer to help others.

Jimmy Carter served his country, his church and his Savior and quietly left an example. Mr. President, I was just a kid back then, but I was watching and taking notes. Godspeed, sir, and thank you for serving our country as you did.  

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