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Jimmy Carter: A President Who Truly Lived His Faith

Jimmy Carter: A President Who Truly Lived His Faith

Last updated on: January 14, 2025 at 10:31 pm by William T. Orr, Jr.

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Jimmy Carter: A President Who Truly Lived His Faith 2025-01-14T22:31:10-05:00 William T. Orr, Jr.

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Why is Jimmy Carter so important today?

Jimmy Carter was an evangelical Christian all his life. A born-again Christian, he attended Southern Baptist churches in Plains, Georgia. He taught Sunday School at Plains Baptist Church for decades.

President Jimmy Carter Image courtesy of the Carter Center used by permission

Unlike many Christians (today and for 2000 years), President Carter lived his faith instead of trying to use it as a weapon to criticize, threaten, belittle, and harm other people.

He welcomed all people. He lit the first Hanukkah menorah in the White House. He attended Passover Seders with the families of his staff.

He was officially recognized as a “friend of the Muslim community” by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

He was about bringing people together.

In 2020, former President Carter left the Southern Baptist church (Southern Baptist Convention churches) because of the SBC’s refusal to allow women to preach and become ministers.

This was not Jimmy Carter’s first split with mainstream evangelicalism. Evangelicals had played a big part in his election of 1976 because of his prominent, but humble Christian faith but had rejected him in the 1980 election.

Why did evangelicals abandon President Carter?

They abandoned him because of his stance on civil rights.

Carter was a believer in human rights for everyone. He championed civil rights for all minorities and marginalized people.

He appointed more women and people of color to government posts than any president before him.

He championed environmental causes and installed solar panels on the White House roof as an example to be followed. (Reagan took them down.)

Jimmy Carter was a unicorn, a black pearl, a white bison; he was a progressive evangelical.

President and Mrs. Carter in Nigeria

President and Mrs. Carter in Nigeria image courtesy of the Carter Center used by permission

Jimmy Carter never stopped helping other people.

In addition to his civil rights beliefs and practices, President Carter brokered (and saved at the 11th hour), a peace accord between Israel and Egypt, the first of its kind.

After he left the White House, he continued to become involved in things that helped people on a personal level.

He worked tirelessly (into his 90’s) with Habitat for Humanity and numerous other charitable and humanitarian causes.

The Carter Center remains involved in humanitarian efforts around the world.

Why is it important to remember Jimmy Carter today?

In early 2025, we are on the brink of a second Donald Trump presidency. There has never been a more important time to remember that a U.S. president can be truthful, compassionate, inclusive, intelligent, science-focused, and concerned for the people of the U.S. and the world.

We can easily lose sight of that fact in a time when honesty, compassion, inclusion, intelligence, science, and concern for people are being systematically removed from the upcoming U.S administration’s consideration in favor of:

Selling overpriced Bibles, sneakers, knives, guitars and other merchandise.
Offering to purchase (or take by force), Greenland, Panama, and Canada.
Allowing foreign nationals to take prominent government roles and have access to the president and national secrets.
Allowing mentally ill men to be cabinet secretaries.
Deregulating everything, allowing billionaires to have free reign over the U.S. citizenry.
Supporting for-profit health care and prescription prices.
Supporting oil and gas interests over clean energy.
Lowering or eliminating taxes for billionaires.

Jimmy Carter was a Christian man.

Jimmy Carter was a Christian man, a Christian man who followed the teachings of Jesus (Yeshua), prophet of Judaism and Islam and Savior to Christians. He loved his fellow humans as Yeshua had commanded and helped his fellow humans whenever the opportunity arose.

He was NOT a “Christian man” who tried to keep minorities down, who believed in white supremacy, who was focused on sin, who believed in forced birth, who took the Bible as unerring, or who worshipped money like so many evangelicals today.

Evangelicals rejected Jimmy Carter because he showed them that they were hypocrites and if there was a Hell, they were going there.

He didn’t tell them. He showed them.

I am certain that many will disagree with my thoughts. I invite you to comment, positively or negatively.

General Christian

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About William T. Orr, Jr.

William T. Orr, Jr. is a retired educator, most recently the principal of a high school named in the Top 10 in the nation by Newsweek magazine. Orr has a B.A. in English Language and Literature, a M.Ed. in Education Administration and Supervision, and an Ed.D. in Education leadership. He’s also completed Postdoctoral study at Yale Divinity School and Dallas Theological Seminary. You can read more about the author here.

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