I rarely comment on matters of faith, especially Christianity. I don’t consider myself in any way qualified to comment on the theology of other faiths, and usually avoid even hitting “like” on Facebook when the topic comes up, even if I personally agree.
But this commentary on Jimmy Carter, posted on the Patheos website (not sure of the author) and shared on Facebook by friend Patrick Harvey, really hit home. It has always been interesting to me that Carter, in so many ways the most openly religious of our presidents, drives conservative Christians crazy. (Can you name another politician who so knowledgeably quotes the Bible and has actually taught it almost every Sunday, in an actual church, for decades?):
“I’ve seen too many over too many years who proclaim their forgiven state by faith, but who in both their personal and political lives do little more than put their boots on the necks of those who have nothing while licking the boots of those with everything. It is at best unseemly, and at worse a condemnation of the Christian religion.
“Jimmy’s religion is different. His faith was something one can respect, a faith that demands everything, a transformation of one’s life, not through a narrow adherence to some medieval idea of moral rectitude, mostly involving sex, but rather a transformation into something new and generous, and which has to be lived in to.
“And that, whatever else may be said, Jimmy Carter has done.“His life and his religion have been one thing, and that one thing has been a witness to the possibility we can be something better seeing ourselves as united in something good.
“The amazing grace that made Jimmy Carter…”