In Memory of Jimmy Carter, Our Most Christ-Like President
There was always something deeply inspiring to me about the peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia, who rose to become President of the United States of America. Jimmy Carter was always revered in my house, and the stories of him being a Sunday School teacher inspired me in high school to do the same.
Despite the fact that I deeply disagree with his conservative theology, there can be no disagreement that President Carter was a great man. He embodied what truly matters about following Jesus: not what you believe, but how you live.
As the great Howard Thurman wrote, there is a profound difference between the religion of Jesus, the radical life of spirituality and love that Jesus himself practiced, and the religion about Jesus, the institutionalized religion focused on believing the “right” things about Jesus. (1)
But in my mind, those two religions were bridged in the life of Jimmy Carter.
The religion about Jesus, created and codified by rich, powerful white men over centuries, focuses on believing the “right” things about Jesus in an effort to avoid eternal damnation. This is the “Christianity” that drove so many of us away from Jesus.
The religion of Jesus, on the other hand, is about following Jesus’s actual teachings and example. It’s about living a spirit-filled life of radical love and service to others. It’s about standing with the poor and oppressed. It’s about working for peace and justice.
And by that measure, Jimmy Carter may be the most Christ-like presidents we’ve ever had.
Living the Greatest Commandment
Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Everything else hangs on these two commands. (2)
That’s exactly what Carter did after his presidency. (3) Rather than enriching himself with corporate board seats and speaking fees like other former presidents, he dedicated himself to serving others.
He built homes with Habitat for Humanity well into his 90s. He worked tirelessly to eradicate Guinea worm disease in Africa. He monitored elections to ensure democracy in developing nations. He negotiated peace deals and advocated for human rights globally.
And perhaps most astonishingly, he fearlessly called out Israel’s establishment of an apartheid state in the occupied Palestinian territories. That position drew shameful condemnation from Zionist organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and AIPAC.
Nevertheless, Carter persisted, and continued to speak out against the injustices perpetrated against the Palestinian people — all while living modestly in the same small house in Plains, Georgia.
President Carter didn’t just talk about loving his neighbors — he actively worked to improve their lives. He didn’t just pray for peace — he went out and tried to make it happen. He didn’t just believe in serving others — he picked up a hammer and built houses with them.
This is what living out the Greatest Commandment looks like. This is what following Jesus looks like.
Actions Speak Louder Than Theology
To be sure, Carter and I would probably disagree on a lot of theological points. I suspect we have very different views on biblical interpretation, salvation, and other doctrinal matters. But here’s the truth I’ve come to realize: That’s not what matters.
What matters is that while many politicians and religious leaders merely pay lip service to Christian values while supporting policies that hurt the poor and marginalized, Carter actually lived those values.
While the religious right blessed America’s wars and empire-building, Carter worked tirelessly for peace. While prosperity gospel preachers built megachurches and lived in mansions, Carter taught Sunday School in a small church and lived simply.
He showed us that what truly matters isn’t whether you believe in the virgin birth or biblical inerrancy, but whether you’re willing to pick up your cross daily and follow Jesus’s example of service and love.
As we prepare to bid farewell to Jimmy Carter, I find myself reflecting on how he showed us that true Christianity isn’t about believing the right things, but about doing the right things. He showed us that you can disagree with someone’s theology while deeply respecting how they live their faith.
Most importantly, he showed us that the way of Jesus is fundamentally incompatible with the pursuit of wealth, power, and empire — and then he proved it by how he lived after holding the highest office in the land.
In the end, Jimmy Carter bridged the gap between the religion of Jesus and the religion about Jesus not through theological arguments or doctrinal compromise, but through the simple power of his example.
He showed us that while we might disagree about what to believe about Jesus, we can still unite in following Jesus’s example of radical love and service to others.
And in doing so, he showed us what it truly means to follow Jesus. May we all be inspired to do the same.
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FOOTNOTES:
- This idea is laid out in Thurman’s classic, Jesus and the Disinherited (Nashville, TN: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1942). You can read more about it in my post, “Christianity” Is Not The Religion of Jesus.
- This teaching appears in all three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew 22:35–40, Mark 12:28–31, Luke 10:25–28) and is a combination of Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. The centrality of this commandment to Jesus’s message is emphasized by its consistent appearance across independent gospel sources.
- To be sure, Carter did some good things while president, but he also did some horrible things. As critics have noted, he could have stoped Indonesia’s then on-going genocide in East Timor. Instead, he upped American arm sales to the perpetrators. (Sound familiar?) Further, the Camp David Accords sinfully excluded Palestinians a seat at the table, completely ignored the PLO, and help set up Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. That invasion inspired Osama Bin Laden to kill American citizens. Carter, of course, worked to right these wrongs after he left the White House, by becoming an election monitor in East Timor in the early 2000s and by fearlessly calling out the Israeli apartheid state.