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Progressive Christian

Last updated on: February 2, 2009 at 12:08 am by Cathleen Falsani

2009-02-02T00:08:00-07:00 Cathleen Falsani

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

God Girl and Jimmy Carter: The Interview

Former President Jimmy Carter just published a new book about the ongoing violent unrest in the Middle East titled, We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan that Will Work.

In the book, Carter, 85, revisits the contributions of past U.S. presidents toward peace in Israel and Palestine, as well as his hopes that President Obama might be able to complete the task.

Late last week, I had the opportunity to speak to the Nobel Peace Prize winner about the spiritual, as well as political, issues surrounding the quest for peace in the Holy Lands. (The following transcript has been edited for clarity. Please pardon GG’s long-winded questions.)

PRESIDENT CARTER: Cathleen, this is Jimmy Carter. It’s a pleasure to talk to you.

CATHLEEN FALSANI: It’s a pleasure to talk to you too. It’s an honor, sir.
I’m the religion columnist for the Sun-Times …

JC: I understand that.

C: … So if you don’t mind, I’d like to take a little bit more of a spiritual slant on our conversation, if you’re comfortable with that.

JC: This will probably be a short interview.

C: Ok. I’m curious – your book is marvelous in the way it sets out where we are now in history and politically and in terms of what’s happened in Israel and Palestine, and this new opportunity with a new administration in the United States. But I’m curious, as a person of faith, what you think might be happening spiritually, in terms of over there, what’s happening in the United States?

JC: Well, it’s a devastating consequence of an unnecessary attack on Gaza. There’s been horrible suffering there. And even with supplies – if we go back in to rebuild the buildings or send medicines and so forth, they’re not being permitted to go into Gaza. So that’s a terrible thing.

But spiritually, as far as religion is concerned, I’ve been deeply interested in this whole entire region since I was a young person. I’ve been teaching Bible lessons since I was 18 years old. I taught last Sunday and I’ll teach again in my little church at home. Half the time my texts from the Bible are from the Hebrew texts – the Old Testament – and the other half of the time from the New Testament. So I’ve been thoroughly immersed in the history of the Jewish people ever since I was a young person and I still am.

I’ve had as a No. 1 priority in my public life, at least in international affairs, to bring peace to Israel and security to Israel, which I know also would bring peace to the Palestinians and security for them.

C: I have a similar background to yours spiritually. I spent much of my formative years in the Southern Baptist tradition and I graduated from Wheaton College. My heart is drawn to the Middle East because of its significance in my own spiritual story and what I believe.

JC: Of course.

C: I just told a few friends of mine from Wheaton that I was going to be speaking to you and they all came back to the same question – and they’re from different parts of the political spectrum: What do you say to people – and I think this is less of an issue now than it was perhaps eight years ago or four years ago – but would do you say to fellow Christians who say there won’t be any peace in Israel until Jesus returns?

JC: Well, that’s prediction with which I don’t agree, because you may be talking about 1,000 years or 100 years – nobody knows. The Bible says nobody knows when the time will come. You cannot just assume that we have to have war and suffering and strife and persecution for hundreds of years. That’s not what the Bible says and that’s not what Jesus intended, for people to suffer until he comes back.

So I don’t disagree with the texts in the Bible, but I think anyone who wants to perpetuate the breakdown in harmony among people who live in the Holy Land until that unpredictable event occurs is just misinterpreting the Bible scriptures.

C: It also says, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.” We’re supposed to work toward peace and not just throw up our hands.

JC: Absolutely.

C: When I was in seminary I spent a lot of time writing about the Troubles in Northern Ireland. And how in the present day it was not really a religious conflict, but that there are deep issues of identity that are caught up in the religious story there that might be in the subconscious but not in the forefront of people’s minds. My perception is that the same thing is true in Israel and Palestine. Do you have the same sense?

JC: What a lot of Christians forget is that we worship the Prince of Peace. We don’t worship the Prince of War or strife or hatred and animosity or persecution of suffering. We worship the Prince of Peace. So I think as a Christian, my duty is to bring peace, particularly to the Holy Lands.

You mention Northern Ireland — you know, one of the best developments that’s occurred I think in the last three of four years and it occurred just a few days ago, was the appointment of George Mitchell to be the Special Envoy to the Middle East. He’s a proven negotiator, having brought about what we thought was an impossible peace concerning the IRA and the rest of Ireland on the one hand, and he’s also familiar with the Mideast situation.

He’s a longtime acquaintance of mine. I was lucky enough as President to appoint him as U.S. Attorney. Then later I promoted him from U.S. Attorney to U.S. Judge, district judge. And then later I appointed the senior senator from Maine, Ed Musky, to be my Secretary of State, and that’s how George Mitchell got to be a senator. So his life and mine are intertwined in a very encouraging way. I don’t think there’s anyone in America who would be a better envoy, or peace negotiator than he is.

C: Just to see what he was able to facilitate in Northern Ireland was incredible.

JC: It certainly was.

C: Why do you think you were successful in brokering that peace accord with Egypt?

JC: Because I took a balanced position. I was neutral between Israel and the Arabs, and it was an extremely unpopular thing to do because all of the political figures in America are 100 percent for Israel. If you are in Congress – back in those days and now – and you say anything critical of Israel or supportive of the other side, you were looked upon as unworthy to hold public office.

So I was able and willing to do that. As president I was pretty much impervious to pressure from any side. And I think that is the role that Obama has assumed for himself. In fact, George Mitchell is already under attack from some of the Israeli supporters in the country just for being, ‘neutral’ or ‘balanced.’ So that’s what you have to do. You have to look at both sides and treat both sides equally.

The peace process is one that is fully supported by a strong majority of Israelis and Palestinians. I’m talking about private citizens. They want peace and they’re willing to withdraw from Palestinian territory in order to have peace. Everybody knows that. But there’s a small minority that doesn’t want to withdraw from Palestinian territories and they’re the ones that are blocking peace so far.

C: And you think that this particular moment in time holds a new and different opportunity for President Obama?

JC: Yes. It’s new and different because of him and because he was willing to address the issue forthrightly. He was willing to appoint someone like George Mitchell rather than an Israeli lobbyist, to be the special envoy. And he’s willing to start working on it the first day he’s in office, which is the same thing I did when I came into office – and not wait until the last year he’s in office.

C: When he has much less political clout?

JC: Exactly.

C: One of the many things that I find encouraging about the Obama administration is the way he speaks and the spirit – as I perceive it – behind that – one of great respect and grace.

JC: Yes. Exactly.

C: I think there’s a different kind of language we’re hearing from the White House now than we’ve heard certainly for the last eight years.

JC: I think that’s true. I think [Obama] will take full advantage of what Theodore Roosevelt called the ‘bully pulpit’ and with his intelligence and with his eloquence, he’s able to put to the American people the reasons why he takes stands or takes actions that might otherwise be more controversial or even criticized. So I think that he’s using that power already in his first week or so in a very superlative manner.

C: Do you think his own personal history of having a father who was at least nominally Muslim, spending time in parts of the Muslim world, is really a help to him in this particular conversation?

JC: Well, I think so. He was already on one of the major Arab television networks yesterday and he made that same point, that he is familiar with life in the Arab world and in the Muslim world. And although he is a Christian and an American, he can at least understand it better than his predecessors had in the White House. I believe that made a major beneficial impact on people in those countries who had turned against us completely during the George Bush administration.

C: If you had a chance to speak to fellow evangelical Christians and talk to them about the importance of this issue right now and how they could be part of prayerfully supporting the pursuit of peace, what would you say?

JC: Well, I spoke to 15,000 of them exactly a year ago in Atlanta at the New Baptist Covenant meeting. And then this Saturday at noon I’ll be speaking to a large group in Birmingham, Ala., and later on this spring I’ll be having four more major conferences on this subject at different places in America. So I try to do this and I emphasize, first of all, what I told you earlier (which everybody knows) that we worship the Prince of Peace. It’s part of a Christian’s obligation to try to bring peace to people who are suffering.

I also point out that the ones that have been persecuted most harshly in the West Bank and Gaza have been the Palestinian Christians. When I first went over there in 1973 to the Israeli government, 15 percent of all the Palestinians were Christians, but they’d been forced out at a much more rapid rate than have the Palestinian Muslims. Now there are only about 50,000 Palestinian Christians left in Palestine – about 25,000 of them, about half of them, in Bethlehem itself. And Bethlehem has now been completely surrounded by a high Israeli war.

I’ve been trying to help with this. When we had the New Baptist Covenant meeting in Atlanta at the end of last January, we had a pastor from that group in Bethlehem come and speak to the entire congregation of 15,000 Baptist Christians.

C: Is there a spiritual appeal that can be made not just to Christians but also to Jews and Muslims in that part of the world that maybe needs to be restated, that you haven’t heard lately?

JC: I think so. There’s not any real difference among the three major religions that you mention concerning their commitment to peace and the alleviation of suffering or moral values. You know, all of us share the same basic moral values and I think peace is an integral part of the scriptures of all three major religions. Justice I think would be emphasized more heavily in the Jewish faith, but all three believe in justice, peace, benevolence, care for the suffering and those kinds of things. So yes, I think there’s no doubt about it.

When I was over in Israel in April, for instance, I had a meeting with peace groups and their leaders. There were over 100 organizations that sent leaders to meet with me to encourage me to continue my effort, which is a most feeble effort in the context of things, to bring peace. So there are an enormous number of Israeli citizens and organizations committed to ending this strife and bringing peace.

C: Mr. President, again it’s an honor. Thank you for what you’re doing and thank you for your time.

JC: Thank you. I’ve enjoyed talking to you. Thanks very much.

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