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\n Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter makes a short speech from the stage during the Billy Graham Library Dedication Service on May 31, 2007 in Charlotte, North Carolina. \/ Credit: Davis Turner\/Getty Images<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 29, 2024 \/ 17:33 pm (CNA).<\/p>\n
A lifelong Baptist, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, who died at age 100 on Sunday, held views that differed from Catholic teaching on a number of controversial social and doctrinal issues, including abortion, same-sex marriage, and the ordination of female pastors.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, perhaps more than any other president in American history, a clear and consistent profession of Christian faith, both in word and deed, characterized Carter throughout his life.<\/p>\n
In a chapter titled \u201cMy Traditional Christian Faith\u201d in his 2005 book \u201cOur Endangered Values: America\u2019s Moral Crisis,\u201d Carter pointed out that \u201cmost of the rudiments of my faith in Christ as Savior and the Son of God are still shared without serious question by Protestants, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Copts, Seventh-day Adventists, and many other religious people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking about his Baptist convictions, in that same book Carter stated that \u201cas evangelicals, we were committed to a strong global mission to share our Christian faith with all other people, without prejudice or discrimination.\u201d<\/p>\n
Throughout his adult life, Carter demonstrated a personal commitment to evangelization by witnessing publicly to his faith, participating in missions, and most famously through teaching Sunday school for nearly four decades on most Sundays, year in and year out, at his hometown Baptist church in Plains, Georgia.<\/p>\n
Faith and works<\/h2>\n
In addition, Carter\u2019s humanitarian work building homes for the poor every year for nearly 40 years as a Habitat for Humanity volunteer was an integral part of his lived faith.<\/p>\n Carter\u2019s sister, Ruth Carter Stapleton, who died in 1983, was herself an evangelist, and the 39th president credited her with having had a major influence in bucking up his faith and practice after his first defeat for the office of Georgia governor in 1966.<\/p>\n That same year, Carter helped lead a Billy Graham evangelistic crusade in his home county. Later, as governor of Georgia, he also served as honorary chairman of Graham\u2019s Atlanta crusade.<\/p>\n For Catholics, Carter was also celebrated as the first American president to welcome a pope to the White House. That milestone came in 1979 during newly elected Pope John Paul II\u2019s first papal trip to the United States.<\/p>\n According to a National Archives summary<\/a> of their conversation, the pope and president connected over their shared faith in Christ. The National Archives said that \u201cthese two deeply religious men \u2014 each at the pinnacle of power in their respective spheres \u2014 agreed to speak not as diplomats but as Christian brothers.\u201d<\/p>\n Although Carter expressed a personal aversion to abortion, as governor of Georgia and then as president he supported legal abortion in accordance with the then-recent Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. He also believed that abortion should be available to victims of rape and incest. <\/p>\n Numa 1976 NBC News interview<\/a>, then-candidate Carter said: \u201cUnder the Supreme Court ruling [Roe v. Wade], I will do anything I can as president to minimize the need for abortions. I think abortions are wrong and I think that we ought to have a comprehensive effort made by the president and Congress with a nationwide law perhaps, adequately financed to give sex instruction and access to contraceptives for those who believe in their use, better adoptive procedures.\u201d <\/p>\n As president, in 1977 Carter signed into law the Hyde Amendment, a policy that bans federal tax dollars from being used for abortions, except to save the life of the mother, or if the pregnancy arises from incest or rape. Since being signed into law, the Hyde Amendment has saved over 2.5 million unborn lives, according to Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America<\/a>. <\/p>\n In recent years, Carter expressed support for homosexual marriage. In a 2018 Huffington Post interview<\/a> the then-93-year-old former president said he believed \u201cJesus would approve of gay marriage\u201d and that \u201cJesus would encourage any love affair if it was honest and sincere and was not damaging to anyone else, and I don\u2019t see that gay marriage damages anyone else.\u201d <\/p>\n Carter authored 30 books, many of which have been directly related to his Christian faith, including his 1996 tome \u201cLiving Faith, Sources of Strength: Meditations on Scripture for a Living Faith\u201d<\/a> (1997), \u201cOur Endangered Values: America\u2019s Moral Crisis\u201d<\/a> (2005), and \u201cFaith: A Journey for All\u201d<\/a> (2018). <\/p>\n In this last book, Carter wrote<\/a>: \u201cI consider myself to be an evangelical Christian \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 the basic elements of Christianity apply personally to me, shape my attitude and my actions, and give me a joyful and positive life, with purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n He also affirmed his belief \u201cthat Christians are called to plunge into the life of the world and to inject the moral and ethical values of our faith into the processes of governing.\u201d<\/p>\n Carter\u2019s unabashed articulation of his Christian faith and inspiration was seen as a breath of fresh air and a boon to his presidential candidacy in the wake of the disgrace and corruption of the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974.<\/p>\n \u201cI will never lie to you,\u201d Carter memorably promised during his successful 1976 campaign.<\/p>\n Among Carter\u2019s most notable accomplishments to advance religious liberty and reopen space for evangelization were his negotiations with then-Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping leading up to the December 1978 reestablishment of full diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China.<\/p>\n As Carter later relatou<\/a>, as part of the deal he pressed for the Chinese government \u201cto let people worship freely, to own Bibles, and for our missionaries to return.\u201d Deng ceded the first two requests but not the third. Carter recalls that when he and his wife, Rosalynn, subsequently visited China in 1981, \u201cthere was a new law that guaranteed freedom of worship, Bibles were plentiful, and overcrowded Christian churches were thriving.\u201d<\/p>\n After being defeated in the 1980 presidential election by pro-life candidate Ronald Reagan, Carter and Rosalynn, who died on Nov. 19, 2023,\u00a0started the Carter Center<\/a>, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to combating disease and promoting health, peace, and democracy worldwide.<\/p>\n For his efforts in advancing peace and human rights, including the historic 1978 Camp David Peace Accords between Israel and Egypt, in 2002 Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.<\/p>\n In his 2018 book \u201cFaith: A Journey for All,\u201d<\/a> Carter recounted that \u201cpeople in my Bible class often ask what it means to be a Christian. My best explanation is that a Christian is a person professing Jesus Christ as personal savior and striving to have the human qualities demonstrated by Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n Carter went on to extol the Lord of his life as \u201cboth God and man, all-powerful but gentle and loving, all-knowing, compassionate, suffering, despised, burdened with the sin of others, abandoned by his followers, publicly executed but resurrected, and now worshipped by billions of believers throughout the world. Personal faith in Christ and a special reverence for him help us comprehend God\u2019s transcendent love.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cConvinced as we are that the miracle of Christ\u2019s resurrection really happened some 2,000 years ago, we must consider this the most important event in the history of the universe,\u201d Carter wrote in his 1997 book \u201cSources of Strength.\u201d<\/a> \u201cFor us, it means that Christ still lives, that his spirit is still with us, and that we can build our lives around him as our Savior.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Former](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/christianpure.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/carter.habitat.jpg?quality=80&ssl=1\")
![\"As](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/christianpure.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/1979.jpeg?quality=80&ssl=1\")
Abortion stance<\/h2>\n
Steady stream of faith-based books<\/h2>\n
China breakthrough<\/h2>\n
![\"Former](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/christianpure.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/carter.sunday.school.jpg?quality=80&ssl=1\")
Core Christian faith<\/h2>\n