As reported by John Sugg of Creative Loafing, Carter recounts this recent exchange from one of his celebrated Sunday School classes:
"I was teaching a Sunday school class two weeks ago," he recalls. "A girl, she was about 16 years old from Panama City [Fla.], asked me about the differences between Democrats and Republicans.
"I asked her, 'Are you for peace, or do you want more war?' Then I asked her, 'Do you favor government helping the rich, or should it seek to help the poorest members of society? Do you want to preserve the environment, or do you want to destroy it? Do you believe this nation should engage in torture, or should we condemn it? Do you think each child today should start life responsible for $28,000 in [federal government] debt, or do you think we should be fiscally responsible?'
"I told her that if she answered all of those questions, that she believed in peace, aiding the poor and weak, saving the environment, opposing torture ... then I told her, 'You should be a Democrat.'"
Partisan as we are politically, smug as we are personally, sarcastic as we are rhetorically, SWNID cannot imagine seriously saying to a teenager that one political party holds all the moral high ground on every issue, much less saying it in the context of what is supposed to be biblical instruction. We say without irony or reservation that this may be the most outrageous thing Carter has ever said.
When the party of Jackson, FDR, Truman and JFK has two living ex-Presidents, one the epitome of the moralistic prig and the other the epitome of the amoral hedonist, both self-absorbed to the greatest degree imaginable, one should fear for the health of the body politic.
4 comments:
As one who leans left politically, even I find this quote, if so said, to be outrageous and more of the stereotypical garbage that comes out of most politicians. No wonder my generation continues to withdraw from the political arena, where immorality, "fakeness," and shallow stances have only given way to more of the same.
It doesn't matter if you lean left or right, it doesn't belong in the church.
tell us what you really think of jimmy carter, jon. stop holding back!
You should not refer to Jimmy Carter as the worst ex-president. That title is not nearly as relevant as the name of Jesus. He is an awful Christian in public.
His identity in Christ should be primary. For him to savage a fellow "born-again" believer (Bush) (as he does all the time) for what he believes to be partisan advantage, I have only one response:
What profiteth a man if he gain the whole world, but lose his own soul?
Carter should be advancing the Kingdom. If he chooses also to advance his party, great. But his desire to advance his party should not come at the expense of a brother or the Kingdom (the cause of the King).
How do non-believers perceive him? He will throw a spiritual brother (and the King right with him) under the bus in order to get a dig in. Carter's behavior is reprehensible.
Falwell and Robertson and others during the Clinton administration (Clinton claimed to be southern Baptist) were (and are) just as bad. However, they are not "ex-presidents." Oh, excuse me. They are "born-again" Christians only.
Carter may have different policies than Bush and the Republicans. But his motives should be the motives of Christ. And he should accuse other Christians of evil motives in the public arena.
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