The death of former President Jimmy Carter is a litmus test for the church. Would Christians be able to rightly discern that the reputation of being a “good person but a bad President” is a cascade? Or would this be another evil politician lionized by church leaders. Bart Barber, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention has weighed in.
If one thing has become evident about the workings of Southern Baptist politics in the past couple of years, it’s that the former SBC presidents continue to play a role in continuing their work in liberalizing the denomination. Bart Barber played in instrumental role in dismantling the Southern Baptist Convention financially and reputationally.
Bart Barber wrote for The Baptist Review, which appears as the next iteration of SBC Voices, The Faith and Message of Jimmy Carter. A Baptist would note that the title aludes to the Southern Baptist faith statement.
Even if 70 times in four years is lackluster, as church attendance goes, Carter was more committed to his faith than Reagan, either Bush, Clinton, Obama, or Trump. To be clear, I do not identify regular church attendance as a reliable indicator of good spiritual health, but apart from very good reason (confinement, for example), I identify regular church non-attendance as a reliable indicator of poor spiritual health. The fact that it is so rare for a president to attend church regularly may give us reason to join the Anabaptists in questioning whether it is good for the soul to get too involved in politics.
Carter’s church attendance picked up after he left office. He and Rosalynn worked hard as volunteers for Habitat for Humanity. He received less attention for his efforts to eradicate Guinea worm disease, which painfully afflicts people in some of the poorest countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. Jimmy Carter tied all of these initiatives to the outworking of his faith in Jesus.
You know what: I think it was sincere. I think Jimmy Carter really was born again. I hope to see him in Heaven. In his personal behavior, he demonstrated the walk of a Christian better than we have come to expect from our political leaders.
Bart Barber separates the personality from the works and uses personality instead of works to judge the fruit of a man’s life. Barber acknowledges the inadequacies of the Carter administration but compartmentalizes that.
His most important infidelity is this, even if others get more attention: Jimmy Carter believed that people could be saved apart from trusting in Jesus Christ for salvation.
Bart Barber asserts that even though Carter denies Christ, he is still saved. He then waxes about charity works which would make Bill Gates a saint, by that standard. He brings up Carter’s unbiblical stances on homosexuality and abortion, the former Carter would not likely have held while President.
It is at precisely this point that we Baptists need to show the Anabaptist project a little more respect. It is at precisely this point that Jimmy Carter has as much in common with Wolfe as he has with Wallis. How much can Christians give themselves to politics without giving themselves away to politics? How hard is it for a Christian to embrace government as a calling without embracing it as their first and highest calling?
Carter landed in a place where Democratic priorities of using the government to oppose greed, violence, and racism just happened to be the places where he thought Christianity ought to have a great deal of influence over society. The priorities embraced by the Religious Right of using the government to oppose debauchery, abortion, Islamic extremism, and government excess just happened to be the places where he thought that Christianity ought to restrain itself. Jesus determined much of Jimmy Carter’s faith; the Democratic Party governed a lot of his message.
Barber makes an ambiguous dig at “Wolfe” with it being unclear whether it was Stephen Wolfe or William Wolfe.
Maybe what we ought to learn from Jimmy Carter is that he actually was a Christian, and a good one at that, but that the arena of national politics is a place where even good Christians are hard pressed to remain true to their faith. His areas of compromise are not really puzzling. The politics explains them.
Carter ends by rationalizing Jimmy Carter’s weakness and praising his faith. The Bible teaches us that faith without works is dead, and works without faith are filthy rags.
4 Responses
When he says he “hopes” to see Carter in heaven—after confirming that Carter was born again—you should post a new article and title it, “Former SBC chief doubts own salvation”.
Unless you have proof that Carter denied the Gospel with his last breath, it’s all right to hope he’s in Heaven, even if you disagree with him on a lot of things, as I do. At least he was moderately pro life and opposed some bussing
Notice that in his article, Bart Barber tries to falsely portray “racism” as a bad thing, by mentioning “greed, violence, and racism.”
As usual, the treacherous Southern Baptist Convention (more like Cultural Marxist Zionist Convention) is complicit in propagating anti-White narratives.
The Southern Baptist Convention (like every other “Christian” organization that takes jewish money) has become corrupt, traitorous, and heretical.
Southern Baptists from 100 or even 50 years ago would be disgusted, horrified, and appalled at what their denomination has become.
With regard to Jimmy Carter, as I mentioned before, at least he had the honesty to openly admit that he was a full-blown liberal.
Unlike the subversive, manipulative, and treacherous liars such as Doug Wilson, Joel Berry, Rod Dreher, Joseph Boot, JD Grear, Chris Rufo, Rick Warren, Mark Dever, Russell Moore, Dan Crenshaw, James Lindsay, Joe Carter, Mark Tooley, Mike Johnson, Robert Morris, Mike Bickle, David Platt, James White, Owen Strachan, and countless others, who pretend to be “conservative Christians” while spewing heretical and evil cultural marxist, pro-jewish, zionist, liberal, anti-White, leftwing doctrine.