The world is talking about Jimmy Carter ever since his death was announced. He was truly a great and inspirational man.
Even president-elect Donald Trump spoke well of him, though he did add that he disagreed with him philosophically. Interesting to know the specific philosophy.
Below is a review of a book by Carter. It’s written by Dominican Vivian Boland and makes for an interesting read on the first day of 2025 and some few days before Donal Trump becomes US president.
REVIEW PUBLISHED IN THE PASTORAL REVIEW 4 (2008) 90-91
JIMMY CARTER, FAITH & FREEDOM: THE CHRISTIAN CHALLENGE FOR THE WORLD London, Duckworth, 2005, x + 214 pages
This best-selling book by President Jimmy Carter recalls a more hopeful time, when the phrase ‘ethical foreign policy’ actually meant something. His Christian faith, he says, helped rather than hindered his activities as President and it continues to inspire his current activities. The foundation established in his name is now a major non-governmental agency promoting development, justice, reconciliation and peace in many parts of the world. In recognition of its work, he was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2002.
On issues that divide Christians across the US – science and religion, for example – he takes a liberal line for the most part. In regard to divorce and gay unions he argues that governments should define and protect the rights of citizens while church congregations define ‘holy matrimony’. He recently left the Baptist congregation of which he had been a member for seventy years on account of its attempts to justify biblically a subservient position for women. He has ‘never believed that Jesus Christ would approve either abortions or the death penalty’ but as President obeyed Supreme Court decisions to the best of his ability, ‘at the same time attempting to minimize what I considered to be their adverse impact’.
He is one of the best-placed commentators on current concerns about religious fundamentalism: he knows what is involved in trying to be a faithful believer and a politician in the ‘real world’. He is clearly not in sympathy with neo-conservative fundamentalism, which threatens the separation of church and state, ‘one of America’s great glories.’ He is clearly angry that a lot of painstaking work in relation to Cuba, North Korea, Palestine and nuclear non-proliferation has been crudely undone by subsequent administrations, in particular the present one.
The chapter on the use of torture in the war on terrorists is the most shocking in the book. It includes the extraordinary revelation that some of the countries in which the ‘rendition’ of terrorist subjects by the United States is carried out are Islamic states, some of whose human rights records have been condemned by the US itself – Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Morocco, Jordan and Uzbekistan. This use of torture, as well as the internment camp at Guantanamo Bay, represents a departure from America’s historic leadership as a champion of human rights. He calls it ‘an embarrassing tragedy’. He is clear that the pre-emptive war against Iraq and the continuing occupation fail to meet the criteria of the just war tradition.
He writes also about environmental concerns, but in his view the world’s greatest challenge in the third Christian millennium is the growing chasm between the rich and poor people on earth. The clarity and conviction of his writing remind the reader that here is no armchair academic or idealistic preacher but a man who has given his life to the search for solutions to these problems. Although there are many things here that might tempt one to pessimism, perhaps even cynicism, the overall sense is hopeful, that the space between the truths of religion and the officially protected scepticism of free societies can be successfully negotiated. Mainline politics may not be the place to do it but President Carter’s experience shows that there are other ways, other kinds of institutional involvement, that do allow it to be done.
Vivian Boland OP
