January 9, 2025
In 2009, I traveled to Kansas City to participate in a gathering called the New Baptist Covenant. Speakers included Tony Campolo, Carolyn Ann Knight, Molly Marshall, and former President of the United States Jimmy Carter.
I grew up with political conversations careening around the air at family gatherings. One side of my family is largely Blue Dog Democrats and the other is dyed-in-the-wool Republicans. Whenever the name Jimmy Carter was brought up, the Democrats would sigh deeply and lament about how President Carter had been treated. The Republicans would roll their eyes and say what a terrible President he turned out to be. In fact, there is a family story that my ardently Republican grandmother burst into tears when it was announced that Jimmy Carter had won the 1976 presidential election.
Because of the varied views of him, I’ve always been fascinated by Jimmy Carter, but I never considered him to be a consequential person in history. A one-term president with a low approval rating doesn’t exactly pique my interests.
However, when I registered for the New Baptist Covenant, I was thrilled at the idea of hearing a former President speak. The New Baptist Covenant was an effort by a diverse group of Baptist organizations to unify around some common values. It held regional gatherings that brought Baptists from across the country together.
I remember that Jimmy Carter’s speech was heartfelt and moving. He encouraged us to make friendships with people who believe differently than us and to always stand up for the marginalized in our society. While there, I bought a copy of President Carter’s book called Our Endangered Values and found myself resonating with much of what Carter was saying. A few years later, I read his book A Call to Action about the need for the world to empower women in all facets of society.
Jimmy Carter was also someone that we have a lot in common with, friends. When there was a fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1980s and 1990s, Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter left the SBC and began affiliating with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. They did so largely based on the issue of women in ministry, just as our church decided to do in August 2023.
President Carter was an active member of Maranatha Baptist Church where he continued to teach Sunday School twice a month into his 90s. For his lessons, he often used the Smyth & Helwys Formations curriculum that many of you use in your Sunday Bible Studies.
In the intervening years, I have read a number of biographies of Jimmy Carter and he has lived an extraordinary life. Was he a good president? *shrug* Depends on which side of my family I am with, I suppose. But I do not believe it can be debated that he was a good, decent man. And our world needs more of his kind of decency.
Jimmy Carter once said, “I have one life and one chance to make it count for something. I’m free to choose that something. That something—the something that I’ve chosen—is my faith. My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I can, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have, to try to make a difference.”
A few days ago, Jimmy Carter slipped from this life into the next. He has left a legacy of public service, pursuit of the common good, and a record of seeking to bring peace wherever and whenever he could.
Politics aside, I am proud to say that I am a Jimmy-Carter-kind-of-Baptist.
By the way, if you are interested in some biographies of Jimmy Carter, I recommend either of these two:
- His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life by Jonathan Alter
- Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter by Randall Balmer
