Living Faith, Times Books, Random House, 1996; 257 pages, by former United States President Jimmy Carter
Reviewed by Kerry A. Shirts
I was too young and busy living my high school years to worry much about who Jimmy Carter was and what he did. Three things I remember concerning him were giving the Panama Canal away, the Middle East Peace pact of Israel and Egypt, and the Iranian hostage crisis. Who doesn’t remember those dreadful days on television, repetitiously dinning into our public ears and eyes the drizzling words, day 345 of the Iranian hostage crisis, day 346 of the Iranian hostage crisis, day 347 of the Iranian hostage crisis, etc.?
Now in recent years he has gathered significant forces together and works with Habitat for Humanity, which has gathered steam and is remarkably successful for humanitarian aid. In August of 1999 he received America’s highest civilian award from President Clinton for his remarkable achievements here in the United States and abroad. President Carter in this book Living Faith, discusses his overriding philosophy and humanitarian background to his decision making throughout his life as a Christian, whether as the President of the United States, a father, husband, grandfather, statesman or humanitarian. What is this philosophy? A pure Christian love, which he exemplifies in both his words and actions.
President Carter’s book was such an interesting and enjoyable read, I couldn’t put it down. I began reading on a comfortable summer evening and a little while later was at the end wanting to keep reading about him and his Christian way of life. That, to me, is a good sign of a good book. His wonderful stories and experiences, whether good or bad, are told in such a way that we can all relate because his is a human story. This is a feel good book, as well as a book of wisdom garnered from a lifetime of service to mankind. Here, at last, is a sincerely Christian approach to life, even though he disagrees with other religions, philosophies, and politics. President Carter reveals his profound humanity and Christianity in an exemplary fashion which we all ought to emulate. No he isn’t the perfect husband (who among us are?), and he made many mistakes in politics as well as in his career (who among us haven’t?), and he has fallen short (as if none of the rest of us have?). But his underlying sustaining faith kept him reaching. He continued exploring options, and tried new avenues of good works, whether for his own family or for our nation as a whole, all the while concentrating on the poorest and most miserable among us Americans and others across the world.
As I read his stories, his achievements, his failures, his knowledge and faith, his learning about Christianity, I was touched. Here is a man much like what I want to be. He is inquisitive, willing to let go of the old, so the new can come into his life. He is willing to take chances and not be a stuffy person, nor have too much of a military rigid mind. Here is a man who reaches out genuinely to others who simply cannot give back because they are too poor. He helps those who help themselves, even though their economic condition is deplorable. He does not ignore the poor. President Carter is an astonishingly well-balanced and wonderfully Christian man with whom I can personally relate; with whom we all can personally relate as we try to live Christian lives.
President Carter is aware of the wonderful grace of God in our lives, yet he knows that being a Christian means more than mere lip service. It is service to others, a sharing of our humanity, our pain, our hopes and fears which marks a Christian. This is, President Carter reminds us, the true essence of love. He says "to have faith in something is an inducement not to dormancy but to action. To me, faith is not just a noun but also a verb."1 We ought to live Christian lives, not just talk about them. As the Book of Mormon reminds us Latter Day Saint Christians, we are saved by grace after all we can do. And as King Benjamin noted when we are in the service of our fellow man, we really are in the service of our God. The wonderful little anecdote President Carter gives us is worth repeating.
A man approaches the pearly gates and Peter and a fellow angel asks him for his credentials. The man says well, during the depression I gave fifty cents to a starving family living on the street. And my neighbor’s house burned down and I gave them a table that cost me half a dollar. The angel checked the record and found the man was telling the truth. The angel asks Peter what to do, and Peter says "Give him his dollar back and tell him to go to hell."2
The man who had ample opportunity to share, help others, etc., merely gave what little he could get away with and thought he was doing someone a favor. In light of the fact that Carter’s father gave a family $25 a month [a not insubstantial sum for that time] during the depression to help them with their rent, Peter’s response was quite appropriate. Instead of seeing how little we can get away with giving, President Carter teaches by example by forging ahead with help toward mankind, not for self-aggrandizement, but for responsible community brotherhood and good will, because we love God, and the person directly in front of us.
What President Carter does is what his community did where he grew up. They all "attempt to demonstrate their own religious faith by serving the poor and needy in an often sacrificial way."3 He further noted that "there was a sharing not just of food but of presence."4 As a Christian, President Carter notes "We need a permanent foundation on which our lives can be fashioned. Without a central core of beliefs or standards by which to live, we may never experience the challenge and excitement of seeking a greater life."5 Or as we Mormon Christians are taught in our scriptures, men are that they might have joy. The greatest thing God does is bring to pass our immortality. In this life we are to have joy, to seek the "greater life."
I rather enjoyed his frank and open dialogue concerning what being a Christian means to him. He recalls that as non-Christians of his congregation came to services and were asked at the end of the sermon to come forward and accept Christ as their Savior, it was that moment "at which a person became a member of the Christian community."6 He means there is nothing about accepting doctrines peripheral to Christ and his saving mission that should either include or exclude a person or community from being Christian. He notes "my best explanation is that a Christian is a person professing Jesus Christ as a personal savior, and striving to have the qualities demonstrated by Jesus."7 Note that. A striving to pattern our lives doing what Jesus did. This is the better way. A Christian life ought to be a verb. We do because we love Jesus Christ. This is the essence of Jimmy Carter’s motivation. It ought to be our essence of living for a "greater life." "For a Christian, the life and teachings of Jesus offer a sound moral foundation that includes all the most basic elements that should guide us…Our faith can provide enough courage to apply these biblical lessons to our daily lives." (my emphasis)8 "President Carter says "As I have come to know, reaching out to others in the name of God can be one of the most deeply rewarding experiences any person can enjoy."9
After spending a lifetime of service to his fellow man, President Carter insightfully understands that "almost all Jesus’ miracles were designed to alleviate human grief, loneliness, and physical suffering."10 He has patterned his life after this wonderfully loving attitude of Jesus. He further notes that Jesus didn’t just sit around explaining theology and telling stories, but his love for everyone caused him to help them. "Jesus was a doer, one whose faith took the form of action, not merely words."11 We have faith we say? Then we should show it. "When we accept the free gift of salvation through God’s grace, it imposes an obligation – a pleasant one – to serve by striving to live in harmony with his teachings… to me, Christianity is not a submission to restraints; the essence of Christ’s teaching is to liberate us and give us peace."12 He believes that being born again is not a passive thing at all in our lives. "Being born again is a new life, not of perfection but of striving, stretching and searching – a life of intimacy with God through the Holy Spirit."13 Interestingly, for President Carter, it is not a mere one time thing to be born again either. "For me, it has been an evolutionary thing. Rather than a flash of light or a sudden vision of God speaking, it involved a series of steps that have brought me steadily closer to Christ. My conversion at eleven was just one of these steps."14
President Carter, like we Mormons, has had his run ins with the Southern Baptist Convention as well. He recollects that as he has concentrated on the service aspect of his Christianity, he has been labeled as a "secular humanist," which certainly confused him as it does us.15 If service to ones own mankind and fellow beings is a secular humanist trait, then would that all Christians were secular humanists! President Carter noted that the Southern Baptist Convention (by implication) has become obsessed with being the only Christian sect who interpret scripture correctly and thereby consider everyone else as being wrong.16 "The tendency of fundamentalists, in Christianity and other religions, to condemn those who differ from them is perhaps the most disturbing aspect of their current ascendancy."17 And herein President Carter has closer ties to we Mormons than perhaps any other religious group thanks to his own people, the Baptists, and other "so-called Christians." Consider the evidence.
Daniel C. Peterson and Stephen D. Ricks have amply documented the tortured and completely ridiculous Christian claims that Mormons are not Christians and that Mormonism worships a different Jesus.18 We Mormons have been called everything from vicious, to deceiving, dishonest, dupes, cult, a fountain of slime, and of course, pagan.19 And this from Christians Ed Decker, Walter Martin, William C. Irvine, Kenneth Boa, to name a few more prominent name calling ones.
The interesting thing to note is that on close analysis of what Jesus himself actually taught, there is nothing on the question of who is a Christian. President Carter himself noted in his military service, that one of his superior officers had strong and firm standards, was repentant for mistakes, and confidence in forgiveness, which said qualities President Carter feels "people of faith should also strive."20 Richard Grant, great grandson of President Jedeiah M. Grant, has demonstrated how fundamentalist Christians have made it hard for moderate Christians to co-exist with their brethren and sisters. He also includes their use of the Bible to understand their own paradigms.21 While he anonymously attended the Christian Bible studies with groups of Christians for four years, he observed a hostility toward Mormonism. While he talked one on one with them, they had come to see their mistakes concerning Mormons since they knew he believed the Bible, and Jesus’ life and works.22
President Carter, I believe, has the right idea when he proclaims, "Christians and believers of every faith have a responsibility to help break down barriers based on race, sex, religion, and other differences."23 This is precisely what Stephen E. Robinson and Craig L. Blomberg has attempted to do with their fascinating discussion between an Evangelical Christian and a Mormon Christian.24 Unfortunately there are many Christians who have distorted their fine discussion and made outright war with even the idea of sitting down and decently talking to their fellow human beings. Norman Geisler spearheaded a response to Blomberg and Robinson wherein several Christian authors have deliberately tried to make the divisions within Christianity, in this case Evangelical Protestants and Mormons, seem far wider than they really are.25 James R. White has been working overtime to make sure Christians will not accept Mormonism as Christian. Darryl Barksdale, the Executive Director and founder of FAIR (Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research) has reviewed James White several times both on the Internet and in print and has some sage observations about White’s tactics, and by extension Christians who, as President Carter lamented, seem hell bent on calling names and categorizing, than on understanding their fellows.
Barksdale notes that White absolutely refuses to even try to have a dialogue of understanding between Protestant Christians and Mormon Christians.26 It appears that Protestant Evangelical Christians are still confusing (deliberately according to Barksdale, and I see no evidence to the contrary, having discussed this with them hundreds of times on the internet myself) what constitute official and unofficial sources of Mormon Doctrine, thinking they can quote the Journal of Discourses, and Orson Pratt’s fine personal expositions in his book The Seer.27 This is deliberate obfuscation, for as James White full well knows, the LDS attitude is essentially "never mind the Journal of Discourses: return to the Scriptures; stick to the Standard Works."28 As far as Orson Pratt’s The Seer, "it seems he was ‘hauled over the coals’ for some of the things he said in that paper, and he ended up repudiating it."29 The problem with ardent Evangelical Christians who insist on "attacking" the Latter Day Saints, is they are beside themselves and annoyed at Blomberg for even acknowledging respectfully the many true statements of factually true LDS beliefs. Apparently Evangelicals feel that none of the Latter Day Saints ourselves can describe or understand our own doctrine, while Evangelicals are the purity of knowledge in LDS theology and scripture, than which nothing is further from the truth.30
President Carter is not alone in lamenting the sad state of affairs with Evangelical Christians who, attempt to discredit everyone who disagrees with them. In fact his little story of Tony Campolo, the noted American evangelist, is electrifying for the zeal with which today’s Evangelicals would literally stone Campolo for his actions. President Carter has a serious point to make in telling the story however. Campolo was in Hawaii at a convention and couldn’t sleep. He overheard a conversation among several "ladies of the night" as he sat eating in a café. One of the ladies mentioned birthday was the next day, her thirty-ninth, and she had never had a birthday party. Campolo secretly arranged a surprise party for her. The next night the woman and her friends were stunned and thrilled with their party and this gracious act, and Tony led the group in prayer. When the café manager later asked him what kind of church do you belong to? Campolo replied "I belong to the kind of church that throws birthday parties for whores at three-thirty in the morning." Carter observes "This was Jesus’ kind of church."31 And in fact, in the scriptures Jesus was always hanging around the dregs of society, women who had committed adultery, the sinners, and the sick. He was truly divinely correct when he noted the whole have no need of the physician. Today's Evangelicals, with their spiteful attitudes, would condemn Christ himself for such actions as unworthy of a Christian!
Barksdale has noted that James White, in his recent book What’s With the Dudes at the Door?, a poorly written book for Christian youth against LDS missionaries, that White goes so far as to proclaim Mormons "Faith-eating bacteria," and "Snakes in the grass."32 I found Jim Spencer proclaiming "Mormonism is a system hatched in hell and birthed in the occult necromancies of Joseph Smith." He also says "The Christ of Mormonism is too insipid to save," among other mean-spirited statements.33 John K. Wise likewise noted that in the most recent updated version of Walter Martin’s book, The Kingdom of the Cults, the General Editor, Hank Hanegraaf in the introduction notes that because Blomberg and Robinson tried to get together and discussion intelligently the various ideas among Mormons and Protestants, this only proved that "Christianity is starting to accept cultic beliefs into the mainstream." Wise ends his thought thus: "The tone of the introduction gives one the feeling that the very fact any evangelical teacher would stoop to agreeing with anything Mormon is cause for deepest concern."34 President Carter put his finger on the solution to all this venom and vindictiveness of Evangelical Christians against their brother Mormon Christians. After discussing five ways of living the Christ-like life, (1. life of contemplation and prayer with God. 2. avoidance of sin and striving for a holy existence. 3. seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit. 4. emphasize compassion on others through sincere service of faith and help for others. 5. witness through preaching about Christ) President Carter concludes: "The fact is that every Christian should attempt to adopt a strong element of all five ways to practice our faith, and not judge others who worship Christ differently." (my emphasis)35 It is sad that today’s Evangelical Anti-Mormon Christians continue to ignore President Carter’s ideas, and deliberately lie and behave in such un-Christian manners so glaringly about their Mormon Christian brothers and sisters.36
President Carter understands that Jesus, while becoming one of us, as a living flesh and blood man here on earth also "liked to have a good time." He notes that "Jesus enjoyed outwitting those who were hostile to him. He gave answers to questioners that destroyed their arguments, embarrassed his tormentors, and amused and enlightened the spectators. As far as give-and-take is concerned, President Carter noted Jesus could have taken over easily from David Letterman or Jay Leno. He liked to go to parties and have a good time with strange people who invited him into their homes, including disreputable people like tax collectors and infamous sinners."37 So what was the point of all this? President Carter, aside from showing us what Christ did and whom with, asks the pertinent question of us all, "what can I find to do that would be good and lovely?"38 We ought not worry about who we can hang out with so we look good in public. Or what shall we do with those who are already righteous and think like we do. "The contemplative Christian must be careful not to fall into a life devoid of service to others."39
In using Jesus as an example, President Carter has reminded us, and the Evangelical Christians, that Christ repeatedly forgave and healed people (not cause schisms among other Christians as to who does or does not belong to the little boys club). We are to reach out to our modern day counterparts of the despised Samaritans among us. Christ further healed Roman soldiers, the despised enemy of his day, as well as gentiles. He touched lepers and a bleeding woman without considering himself unclean. He also condemned mere superficiality concerning the laws and compliance with them. And what was the result of his very unorthodox un-Christian behavior? His betrayal, beating, mockery, arrest, trial, and crucifixion. President Carter’s words ring true when he says "Christ wants us today to follow his example by expanding the meaning of forgiveness, service, and love – all in a practical way."40 President Carter knows from experience that "there is also a powerful ministry in the alleviation of suffering, reaching out in harmony, respect, and partnership to others and sharing life."41
I understand, from information shared with me on the internet, that President Carter was severely castigated because he told the Southern Baptist Convention (who were welcomed to hold their world conference in Salt Lake City last year) that they were wrong in proclaiming Mormons as being pagans and not Christians. Carter’s words, though ignored by his own Christian people, have the authenticity of Christian virtue when he says: "I have seen more clearly that I must adapt to differences among people, learn to accept the imperfect, understand the fallibilities of ourselves and others, and have mercy – in other words, forgive. Forgiveness is not easy, but it is a goal to be sought, a process that should continue throughout our lives."42
President Jimmy Carter has challenged all of us with these words: "But if we aspire to grow as human beings, we should struggle to close the gap by making our inner selves truer reflections of our own highest values, which, for me, grow from my Christian faith. In fact, most of the beautiful act of Jesus as recounted in the Gospels do not relate to compliance with existing laws; they were extraordinary because he reached beyond what was required or expected."43
Again, in telling us his true Christian souls’ desire, President Carter describes another of Jesus’ examples for us to contemplate. "For all of us, particularly people of faith, there is a higher expectation, as expressed for me by Jesus: ‘All things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.’ (Matthew 7:12)… For Christians, it is not just one of the general rules of our religion but the rule concerning our personal behavior."44
And finally, President Carter discusses the fact that the historians, archaeologists, and documents experts of Biblical manuscripts do not always come up with things faithful about Jesus. When this happens, President Carter’s stance is one of faith. "When the theories conflict with my basic beliefs and my living experience of Christ, I prefer to rely on faith, confident that further discoveries of ancient texts and other evidence will never disprove what I believe that makes the impact of Jesus on my own life so profound. After all, it is the role of Jesus in reshaping the lives of believers today that matters most."45 And again, President Carter lays out his faith: "To me personally, Jesus bridges the tremendous chasm between human beings and the seemingly remote and omnipotent God the Creator."46
For President Carter, as for we Mormon Christians, it is not the physical evidence that matters most concerning the truths of Christ in any of the scriptures. It is the Spirit of Christ which pervades the scriptures that is important. It is our striving to fulfill our lives through Christ that means everything. Thank you President Carter for again reminding us of the truly important things in life.
Endnotes