S6, Ep. 07: Jimmy Carter: Baptist, president, servant leader

President Jimmy Carter introduced millions of people to what it means to be a Baptist. In this episode, Amanda and Holly reflect on what he meant to our country and to both of them, as fellow Baptists, as well as his impact on faith freedom for all. They share how he is a shining example of the diversity of Baptists in our country as well as what it looks like to live out one’s faith freely and fully without forcing it on others.

SHOW NOTES

Segment 1 (starting at 00:38): A look back at the life of Jimmy Carter and his funeral service

The New York Times has an extensive obituary on President Jimmy Carter, which you can read online: Jimmy Carter, Peacemaking President Amid Crises, Is Dead at 100

You can watch a recording of President Carter’s funeral on the YouTube channel of the Washington National Cathedral: In Celebration of and in Thanksgiving for the Life of President James Carter – 1.9.25

Holly mentioned an article from The Washington Post titled “One chance to get this right, a look behind the prep for Carter’s funeral.” It is available online under the title “How do you create a funeral fit for a president? A look behind Carter’s.”

Holly mentioned speaking with the Rev. Dr. Paul Baxley, the executive coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, who attended the service. CBF is the denominational home of President Carter’s church, Maranatha Baptist Church.

Segment 2 (starting at 12:41): Carter as a Baptist: Commitment, divisions, and the New Baptist Covenant

Amanda’s piece honoring President Carter in TIME magazine is available online: Jimmy Carter’s Commitment to Religious Liberty Should Guide Us All

Amanda read comments from President Carter in 1979, saying he thought the government should “stay out of the prayer business.” You can read the archived article on the website of The New York Times: President Is Opposed To School‐Prayer Bill

Amanda was quoted during a conversation on Jimmy Carter’s faith between Jason DeRose and Ailsa Chang on NPR’s All Things Considered, which also included a quote from the Rev. Dr. Martin Marty in 1976: Jimmy Carter’s complicated relationship to the church

For more on the history of the New Baptist Covenant, read this 2022 story by Mark Wingfield for Baptist News Global: New Baptist Covenant shifts gears to convene, connect and communicate

Amanda mentioned this story in The Washington Post about First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, D.C., which is the church where both she and President Carter were once members: Jimmy Carter attended this D.C. church. Now, it honors his legacy.

Segment 3 (starting 24:26): Carter’s legacy and example for where we are today

Amanda read President Carter’s comments from a 1977 press conference on the separation of church and state. You can read the transcript on the website of The New York Times: Transcript of the President’s News Conference With U.S. and Polish Journalists

You can see the never-before-released video of Amanda and BJC Executive Director Emeritus Brent Walker honoring Jimmy Carter at this link.

Respecting Religion is made possible by BJC’s generous donors. Your gift to BJC is tax-deductible, and you can support these conversations with a gift to BJC.

Transcript: Season 6, Episode 07:  Jimmy Carter: Baptist, president, servant leader (some parts of this transcript have been edited for clarity)    

AMANDA: The example that President Carter left us of what it means to be a person of faith who serves in public office but does so without imposing their faith on everyone else is a really important lesson for us all to linger on.

Segment 1: A look back at the life of Jimmy Carter and his funeral service (starting at 00:38)

AMANDA: Welcome to Respecting Religion, a BJC podcast series where we look at religion, the law, and what’s at stake for faith freedom today. I’m Amanda Tyler, executive director of BJC.

HOLLY: And I’m general counsel Holly Hollman. Today we’re going to talk about the life and legacy of one of only four Baptist presidents in the history of our country, Jimmy Carter. He passed away on December 29 at the age of 100, and we thought it would be fitting to take a moment to reflect on what he meant to our country and to both of us as fellow Baptists, as well as the impact he had on faith freedom for all.

He’s a shining example of the diversity of Baptists in our country, as well as what it looks like to live a life of servant leadership, no matter if someone is in office or not.

AMANDA: That’s right, Holly. Great to be with you. Happy new year. Happy 2025.

HOLLY: Happy new year. What a way to start, with so much action, both on the Hill and around the country and all the weather calamities and difficulties. And, yes. It’s nice to have a moment just to be together and have this conversation.

AMANDA: I think our hearts, our prayers are certainly with all of those impacted by the awful fires in Los Angeles, just really a cataclysmic event that is ongoing as we record here today.

But I do think it is a fitting way to start our 2025 on the podcast to take a moment of reflection for Jimmy Carter. I know that we have all probably seen the many retrospectives on his life, and we’re going to link in the show notes to the New York Times obituary which is very extensive and covers many details of his life and his presidency.

But to get started, let’s do our own short biography of President Carter.

James Earl Carter, Jr., was born in Plains, Georgia, on October 1, 1924. His father made a comfortable living, growing peanuts, cotton and other crops, and his mother was a nurse and an avid reader. He graduated from high school at just 16 years old, when he entered the Naval Academy at 19 years old. He graduated in 1946 and married his wife Rosalynn a month later.

Carter was a leader in the crew that would build and prepare the first nuclear submarine, but he resigned his commission after his father died, and he returned home to Plains to run the family business.

HOLLY: He became a local civic leader, then a state senator, and in 1970, he was elected governor of Georgia. He got involved in national politics, and in 1976, he won the presidency, defeating Gerald Ford. Carter’s time in office was during a tumultuous time in history, including the Iran hostage crisis, long lines at the gas pumps, and the recovery from the Vietnam War.

He created the Department of Energy and Department of Education. He installed solar panels at the White House, and he brokered the Camp David Accords in 1978 between Israel and Egypt, ending decades of conflict between the nations.

He lost reelection to Ronald Reagan in 1980, and the Carters returned to Plains, Georgia. They began to build a new life. They got active in Habitat for Humanity, spending one week a year building houses for others. Carter created an effort to eliminate guinea worm in Africa. He wrote many books on a range of issues throughout those decades as a former president.

AMANDA: He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts,” as the citation put it. For years, Carter taught Sunday School at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia.

He survived cancer in 2015, and he kept teaching Sunday School afterward. He had surgery in 2019 for a broken hip suffered during a fall, and in recent years, he was not in the public eye as much. He went into hospice care in February 2023, and in May of that year, the family announced that his wife Rosalynn had been diagnosed with dementia. She entered hospice care in November 2023 and lived only a few days after doing so.

The Carters were married for 77 years, the longest marriage of any president and first lady in American history. Carter himself was in hospice care for almost two years. He is the longest living president in American history and the first to live to be 100 years old. He is survived by his four children, eleven grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren.

Well, Holly, that is truly a remarkable life of public service in so many different areas. But also I appreciated all of the tributes, because it also gave notice to his immense personal life, too, his commitment to family, his commitment to faith, and all of that was really on display at the state funeral and all of the proceedings before it in Washington last week.

HOLLY: The service captured so much of who he was. He had such an amazing life before, during and after his presidency. Of course, a state funeral in this city is something that we take notice of, those of us who live and work in D.C.

There was a national day of mourning on Thursday. There was, of course, a long procession that came through Georgia and then into D.C. where he was memorialized, first at the Capitol, and people came from all over the country, perhaps all of the world to stand in line to pay their respects, before then moving on to the National Cathedral where the memorial service was.

So it was truly a few days of a lot of attention on former President Jimmy Carter, in the midst, of course, of these national weather events, as well as preparing for the upcoming inauguration.

AMANDA: I watched the events from afar, from my home in Dallas, and was struck by the stateliness of it all, the procession of the casket from the rotunda to the National Cathedral, just watching how Washington — the city of Washington as the capital city — honored this past president.

And with so many different changes in our society, in our government, in the way that things operate, there was some comfort in the way that this tradition remained the same, and really feeling like that this — and then, of course, just seeing the past presidents and current president, the incoming president, all seated together in the cathedral, it just showed there are ways that we can move past partisan politics to come together to honor our leaders, I thought.

It provided, I think, some sense, not just of comfort but of hope of some of the institutions that we hope can transcend these very difficult moments and that that was all put aside for at least a few hours for us —

HOLLY: Yeah.

AMANDA: — as a country to pay tribute to a remarkable person.

HOLLY: That’s right. This is one of those times where you really see the value of ceremony and tradition. There was a article in The Washington Post talking about the responsibility on the National Cathedral that had the headline that said, “One chance to get this right, a look behind Washington National Cathedral’s preparations to make Carter’s funeral as perfect as possible.”

So I think it was comforting to see government work cooperatively together to make this state funeral happen. I was actually at home that day and watched a good bit of the service comfortably in my den, and I found it very, very moving, from the beginning. You know, once you get past the impressiveness of how quiet and orderly the event began, then I could just relax and listen to the music, hear the prayers that began, and really just kind of enjoy being part of that service.

Of course, there’s plenty things to watch as far as who’s there and who’s doing what during the service, but for the most part, I felt like it was just a really appropriate religious service, honoring a human being, and knowing that all of the selections reflected who he was.

I think one of the first relatives who spoke was one of the grandsons, Joshua Carter, and the point of his contribution to the service was to talk about his grandfather’s faith, the fact that Jimmy Carter studied the Bible and he taught it his whole life. He would speak to the most diverse Sunday School class you could imagine, because people would come from all over the country and all over the world to be there.

And then he read extensively from the book of Romans, chapter 8, this very famous passage that ends very beautifully.

JOSHUA CARTER: (audio clip) “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The word of the Lord.

 

CONGREGATION: (audio clip) Thanks be to God.

HOLLY: Just a really fitting, beautiful way to connect that time of studying the Bible, seeking to follow the Bible, with the hopefulness, even in death, that you can see in that passage.

Our good friend, executive coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, was among those who attended the service in person. I could see Paul Baxley on TV, and I later reached out to him. And he reflected on what a tremendous honor it was to be there in the room, to be able to represent Carter’s denominational community as a special privilege.

And he said that he just felt that it was a beautiful experience overall, generally an act of worship, which is, I think, what I was trying to convey, that instead of it just being pieces of religious importance sprinkled in, it really felt like a specific, whole worship event, like a lot of funerals are for people who are so steeped in their faith.

Paul said that he was really struck by the genuine way that Carter’s faith stood out, and that was such a consistent theme throughout all of the eulogies, the strength of Carter’s faith and the way it was a foundation for his friendships and connections with others. And it was also clear that his Baptist faith really opened him up to other people, people of other religious traditions in ways I know that Amanda and I love to hear, love to see celebrated, that someone’s commitment to being Baptist would reflect a commitment to faith freedom for all.

Paul said that he hoped people would see this not as a exhibition of a bygone era but instead a call to something more excellent. And I think that’s a great way to think about it.

 

Segment 2: Carter as a Baptist: Commitment, divisions, and the New Baptist Covenant (starting at 12:41)

AMANDA: Well, as we mentioned earlier, President Carter went into hospice care nearly two years before he passed away, and so we, along with a number of other people, had some time to think about how we wanted to pay tribute to him when he did pass away.

I had the chance to honor him with a piece in Time magazine, focusing on his legacy when it came to religion and religious liberty, under the title, “Jimmy Carter’s Commitment to Religious Liberty Should Guide Us All,” thinking that there are so many different pieces of his life that would be honored and wanted to be sure that people understood how committed he was, not just to his faith but also to these foundational American principles and Baptist principles of religious freedom for all people.

We’ll link to the piece here in show notes, but I thought I would read just a couple of lines from this article. “President Carter will be remembered for living out his devout Baptist faith through his pursuit of peace and support for human rights as well as acts of service, such as building homes for Habitat For Humanity. When it came to following Jesus, Carter walked the walk.

“Lesser known, and particularly relevant for American politics today, is our 39th president’s commitment to the Baptist value of religious liberty. The United States’ most religious president in recent memory was also the most committed to the separation of church and state.”

HOLLY: Amanda, I’m so glad you took advantage of the opportunity to honor that particular part of his legacy, because as even this short podcast shows, there were so many things to celebrate about Jimmy Carter’s life. But the one that we know and particularly connected to was his commitment as a Baptist to that separation of church and state that protects religious freedom for all.

And, Amanda, I know your piece mentions how he reflected in his own time about how the press and people were kind of fascinated with his being a Christian, saying out loud that he was a born-again Christian. That reminded me, you know, to kind of reflect and say, now, how were people thinking at the time; how did that strike them?

And I think it was really just this cultural connection to say, What does that mean? You know, we haven’t heard a president talk like this or presidential candidate talk like this.

There was a famous Playboy interview where he talked about his faith. Of course, I remember this, because I was a very little girl, and when someone said, Playboy, I knew that that was a big deal to pay attention to, but I have a vague notion that it had to do with the fact that there was such thing as sinning in different ways and that he admitted to committing adultery in his heart, which basically is this idea that in Christian marriage and his commitment, that he was so committed to his wife that that was a failing that he talked about.

And I’m sure that struck many people as odd, and I bet it struck a lot of people in that kind of culture as, This is a person who is truly committed to a faith that they understood and wanted to see in leadership, with that kind of close relationship with his wife and that understanding of very high standards for himself.

Of course, later, as I learned more about Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter, there was much more to that relationship and their leadership together and his tremendous commitment to women’s rights.

Amanda, I like how in your piece, you had the opportunity to talk a bit about differences in Baptist life and how President Carter’s decisions reflected some of those changes.

AMANDA: Yes. You know, he really had such a thorough understanding of what it meant to be Baptist, and I think part of his opportunity as such a high profile Baptist, as you note, is a bit of a curiosity for some to talk about what it meant to be born again, but he also could speak to the separation of church and state as something that came out of his understanding, not just of what it meant to be an American, but also what it meant to be a Baptist.

And he talked about his commitment to the separation of church and state. He talked about his opposition, for instance, to government-sponsored prayer in public schools. At the time he said, “I think the government ought to stay out of the prayer business and let it be between the person and God and not let it be part of a school program under any tangible constraints, either a direct order to a child to pray or an embarrassing situation where the child would feel constrained to pray.”

And he went on to tell the editors that he agreed with those prior Supreme Court rulings, quote, “as a Baptist.” So there’s some real opportunity here, not just for constitutional literacy but for religious literacy as well. And his audience for that understanding of religious literacy went beyond just the people who were in the public but also with his, as you note, very public break with the Southern Baptist Convention.

He did that over increasing rigidity from the Southern Baptist Convention over the interpretation of the scriptures, which, again, is — I believe, in a classical Baptist sense — really not very Baptist. In the Baptist tradition, we practice Bible freedom, where each individual believer has the responsibility to interpret the scriptures for themselves.

And when he saw the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention trying to impose one reading of the scripture on all Baptists, he broke with that interpretation, particularly as it came to the leadership of women in Baptist churches and his very public disagreement with some of those interpretations of the scripture.

HOLLY: You were also featured in a story on NPR on All Things Considered, and NPR’s religion correspondent, Jason DeRose had a conversation with host Alisa Chang about Carter’s faith, and you were quoted in that conversation about your concern about Christian nationalism and how President Carter spoke for the separation of church and state and against Christian nationalism.

And that conversation also featured a clip of the famous church historian Martin Marty, who talked about the Baptist tradition at its best being one that doesn’t want to merge church and state. And one thing that we know is remarkable about President Carter is that even after that break with the Southern Baptist Convention, he recognized the differences in Baptist life, and as he was in his presidency and other parts of his life, he continued to be a bridge builder.

One example of the way that Jimmy Carter brought people together was his work on the New Baptist Covenant, an organization that he founded to create vibrant Baptist communities, building bridges in places previously marked by division.

We can link to the show notes more about this chapter in his life, but it’s important to us to remind people that in 2007, he brought together Baptist leaders from across racial and theological divisions in Baptist life, culminating in this project which was really a beautiful effort to see where there was common ground and commitment to scripture in speaking in one voice to do good things throughout the world and to kind of heal some divisions.

The New Baptist Covenant started with a big event in Atlanta, and I remember I had the honor of being there. I have only a few memories of it, but they were all so positive. The fact that Baptists had been through these kind of Baptist wars, fighting over and dividing over the way that people interpret scripture and who’s in and who’s out.

These were divisions that were not part of my understanding of Baptist faith in growing up, but they were new and harmful: the idea that certain people were excluded from being clergy, as scripture was talked about in terms of being inerrant and other terms that really seemed to be control of what the scripture said as opposed to the emphasis being on Jesus as Lord, following the life of Christ, and other things that had been more prominent and primary in Baptist life.

But this New Baptist Covenant was an example of bringing people together, convening ways that was very familiar to BJC that is made up of Baptists from different parts of Baptist life, so it was quite a celebration for us. And it led to these covenants between churches across the country where you would have these — where you would recognize that churches are segregated for long historical reasons, but there is an effort to come together in covenant to learn from each other and be in community.

AMANDA: Yeah, and I can speak personally to some of my experience. So when I did live in Washington, D.C., I was a member of the First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, D.C. That is the official name of the church, also known as First Baptist Washington.

HOLLY: The church that the Carters attended.

AMANDA: Exactly. And many of my friends at First Baptist were present when the Carters were there, and in fact — we can link in show notes — there was a great piece in The Washington Post about his time at First Baptist Washington and quoted several friends of mine in that piece, as well as the current pastor, Rev. Julie Pennington-Russell.

But while I was at First Baptist, we were in one of these covenant relationships with the 19th Street Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., which confusingly is on 16th Street but at one time was on 19th Street, and in fact, at one time long ago was part of First Baptist Church but did separate and go into two churches, in part because of a legacy of racism at First Baptist Church.

And so part of the work of this covenant are for congregations to tell their histories and to tell their histories in relationship with other churches, because as we know, history does not have one perspective.

And so to have a better sense of our own history so that we can live more fully into what God has called us to be in the present and so to really get to know this other congregation, to do work with them — not just on the history project, but in other theological and service-oriented ways — was really a profound experience for me and for the church.

And so I can speak that, you know, in these ways, I never got to meet President Carter myself, but I benefitted from his legacy — and not just his legacy as president but this incredible life he had post-presidency in so many different ways.

 

Segment 3: Carter’s legacy and example for where we are today (starting at 24:26)

AMANDA: And when I think about President Carter’s legacy for where we are right now, you know, Holly, we are recording this the week before the second inauguration of Donald J. Trump. We know that there are threats to American democracy at all levels, not just the federal level but state and local levels as well, and this increasing push towards Christian nationalism and towards a theocracy and away from some of these constitutional protections of religious freedom for all.

And so I think the example that President Carter left us of what it means to be a person of faith who serves in public office but does so without imposing their faith on everyone else is a really important lesson for us all to linger on before we finish all the tributes to President Carter and go forward into this next year with all of the challenges ahead.

He said at a press conference when he was president in 1977, “We believe in separation of church and state, that there should be no unwarranted influence on the church or religion by the state, and vice versa.” You know, in his very plainspoken way, from Plains, Georgia, he tells this truth that remains a truth today and one that, I think, we need to really draw close to as we go forward with the challenges ahead.

HOLLY: I think we, like many other people, are hoping that that focus on Jimmy Carter’s life will inspire people to, you know, build bridges, to look beyond their specific personal interest and to reach for how we can come together as a country to be the best, to be what we’re called to be.

And I’m so thankful that we had the opportunities to connect with Jimmy Carter in many different ways throughout the years. In the ’90s, we gave him the J.M. Dawson Religious Liberty Award, which is the highest honor that BJC gives in our work through the years.

And when BJC had a major capital campaign to open our Center for Religious Liberty on Capitol Hill, he sent some encouragement and an endorsement of that effort, saying that the Baptist Joint Committee does important work under trying conditions. Yes, and so we should try to continue to live up to those expectations today. He said that a Center for Religious Liberty and a capital campaign to make it possible is essential to allow BJC to do its work.

And I know, Amanda, you and I and our whole staff appreciates and has benefitted from that work, of people who came before us. And we, like a lot of people, were looking to honor him for many years before he died, and I think we should put in the show notes a video that we found that you at the beginning of your leadership here at BJC as a new executive director did, along with our former executive director, Brent Walker, in preparing a video message to honor the life of President Carter.

AMANDA: Yes. We’ll include in show notes a link to that previously unpublished video that Brent as executive director emeritus and I made, sharing our joint appreciation for President Carter. In it, Brent shared a line that I continue to repeat quite a bit.

When asked, What kind of Baptist are you, he said often the most efficient answer would be, “I’m a Jimmy Carter kind of Baptist.” And that kind of openness and commitment to the core principles of freedom and soul liberty are at the heart of what it means to be a Baptist and continue to be at the heart of the work that inspires what we do at BJC.

HOLLY: Well, we remain very thankful for these tributes to Jimmy Carter and the beautiful service at the National Cathedral, honoring his life and again the opportunity to introduce this kind of life of faith and this kind of commitment to religious freedom to new generations.

That brings us to the close of this episode of Respecting Religion. Thanks for joining us. For more information on what we discussed, visit our website at RespectingReligion.org for show notes and a transcript of this program.

AMANDA: Respecting Religion is produced and edited by Cherilyn Guy.

HOLLY: You can learn more about our work at BJC defending faith freedom for all by visiting our website at BJConline.org.

AMANDA: We would love to hear from you. You can send both of us an email by writing to [email protected]. We are also on social media @BJContheHill, and you can follow me on X and now also on Bluesky and Threads @AmandaTylerBJC.

HOLLY: And if you enjoyed the show, share it with others. Take a moment to leave us a review or a five star rating to help more people find us.

AMANDA: We also want to thank you for supporting this podcast. You can donate to these conversations by visiting the link in our show notes.

HOLLY: Join us next time for a new conversation Respecting Religion.