Living Faith

Christian Century, March 19, 1997 by Bill J. Leonard

By Jimmy Carter: Times Books, 257 pp., $23.00.

Jimmy Carter was president of the United States for four years; he has been teaching Sunday school for more than half a century. After reading Carter's spiritual memoir, one suspects that it's probably the latter experience that most informs his postpresidential identity as negotiator, peacemaker and famous builder of Habitat for Humanity houses.

This book, one of almost a dozen Carter has published since leaving the White House, grew out of the Bible class he teaches at the Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia. The class attracts not only members of that small congregation but hundreds of visitors from across the nation and around the world. Indeed, the New York Times recently noted that this gathering offers ordinary citizens one of the most direct and consistent contacts with any public figure, let alone a former president, to be found in this country.

The book explores various Bible passages as taught by Carter and expanded upon in the give-and-take of class discussions. It also details aspects of his spiritual pilgrimage, often disclosed in the context of his teaching. These include his grappling with personal defeats, spiritual doubts and issues of race, marriage and parenting.

Carter takes his Sunday school teaching seriously. His weekly lesson preparation reflects his personal discipline and the influence of certain traditional methods of Bible study practiced by generations of Southern Baptist Sunday school teachers. Preparation for Sunday begins with nightly Bible reading, a habit he and Rosalynn Carter have maintained for more than 20 years. Recently they have been reading the text in Spanish in order to improve their proficiency in that language.

In a telephone interview, Carter acknowledged that the routine brings a "healing process" to marital tensions as well as a "self-discipline" which extends to his calling as a Sunday school teacher. He explains, "No matter what I am doing or where I am, I try to get back home to Plains in time for church on Sunday morning." On Saturday he studies the biblical text and lesson materials intently, rising early on Sunday morning to type out a brief outline and give Rosalynn a copy before he leaves for church. Through interaction with the diverse members of his class, Carter says, his own faith grows. He frequently refers to the lessons he has learned from class participants, and writes that "the more memorable experiences" come when he and the class members "meld into a common group, all striving to decipher the meaning of Bible verses and to apply the message to our own lives."

Carter's description of his system for studying and teaching the lessons reminds me of the Sunday school teachers I had in Texas more than 40 years ago. In many ways, his approach seems a throwback to an earlier generation of teachers, enlisted through denominational programs for a task that was at once a lay ministry and an act of faith.

"Religious faith has always been at the core of my existence," Carter declares. His faith journey has mirrored the classic shape of Baptist and other southern Protestant experience. He recalls learning "memory verses" as early as age three, attending Sunday worship services and church suppers, and listening to "hellfire and damnation" sermons at the seasonal revivals. From those experiences came his decision "to accept Christ during a revival service when I was eleven." This "born-again" conversion he understands as "an intimate melding of my life with that of Jesus," an experience which began an "evolutionary" process of religious development. (More conservative readers might wish that he had used a different word to describe the development of faith.)

Carter contends that faith is "not just a noun but also a verb." Fauth compels hum to respond concretely to those in spiritual and physical need. He points to the impact on his own sense of Christian service of two Georgia-based Christian communities: Koinonia Farms, founded during the 1940s in nearby Americus by theologian-activist Clarence Jordan, and Habitat for Humanity, begun at Koinonia Farms by Millard Fuller more than 20 years ago. The witness of these two communities, particularly in their concern for racial reconciliation and for alleviating poverty, shaped Carter's own attempts to unite spirituality and social service.

Family is an equally powerful influence on Carter's life and faith. Throughout the book he acknowledges the impact of his strong-willed parents. He recounts tender moments with a father who set high standards for his son and whose death in 1953 was "the first real tragedy in my life." He acknowledges that although his father sought to be fair to all people, "Daddy accepted the racial segregation of the South as a way of life." They had heated disagreements over racial issues, particularly after the younger Carter's interracial experiences in the U.S. Navy. Carter's mother, best known to Americans as "Miss Lillian," a Peace Corps volunteer in her senior years, was a major force in his life. He suggests that her open and progressive racial attitudes were tolerated by their white neighbors only because as a nurse she was permitted, even in a segregated culture, to care for blacks as well as whites.