Tuesday, December 31, 2024

*** This is a rough transcript of today’s show ***

It is the 31st of December 2024. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

The answer to a trivia question is: William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Benjamin Harrison and Jimmy Carter.

The question: who are the only 4 American presidents to also serve as regular Sunday School teachers- McKinley and Roosevelt taught when they were younger and Harrison taught after he was in office- but Jimmy Carter- the peanut farmer-turned-president taught Sunday school regularly

To be fair, he was no yokel- he was also a graduate of the Naval Academy, had a degree in science, and took classes in reactor technology and nuclear physics- one historian has counted Carter, along with Thomas Jefferson, as our two most accomplished Renaissance Men to also be President.

I had just hit send on yesterday’s show- Jason in Goshen’s question about the year that was that I answered with a list of some of the big names in the church that we lost- and then I got the notification: President Jimmy Carter, dead at 100. Had I been notified 30. Minutes earlier, I may have scrapped that show for something like today’s- the last of 2024.

Now- you will be inundated by memorials for our 39th president, and I’m sure you can find the folks with the “proper” takes, politically or economically. But it was Jimmy Carter’s public faith in the public square that interests me the most. Just recently, I answered a provocative question about ‘my favorite Americans’ with the cheeky response, easy: Sean McVay and Jimmy Carter.

(McVay is obvious, of course) but Carter always fascinated me as someone “beyond” politics- maybe even somewhat bad at them. Whatever. What fascinates me about Carter is how politics was an outgrowth of public service, which was an outgrowth of loving his neighbor, which was an outgrowth of his faith. While this is true for MANY, Carter was the most explicit American president when it came to his faith- and over a long period of time and with a track record so unlike many who could claim, at one point, to be the most powerful man on earth.

Besides being a longtime Sunday School teacher- both at home in Plains and at his home church in DC while acting president he would become most famous for his explicit Christian faith, coupled with the old Baptist insistence on the separation between church and state.

He once remarked: “I am a peanut farmer and a Christian. I am a father, and I am a Christian. I am a businessman and a Christian. I am a politician and a Christian. The single most important factor in my own life is Jesus Christ.”

He made headlines with his explanation that he was a “born again” Christian and is credited with helping to popularize this particular language common with Evangelicals. It should be noted that Charles Colson- also a Christian but a politician with a, well… you can google him- his post-prison memoir was titled “Born Again,” and this was before Carter. But Carter linked himself to Colson (upsetting those in his party) as a Christian of the evangelical, expressive, and conversion type. The term “born again” goes back to the Gospel of John and was popular amongst English Evangelicals in the 19th century (sometimes, when the media picks up something they haven’t heard of before, they just assume it is new).  

He also famously gave an interview to an adult magazine that nonetheless had a credentialed reporter at the White House. Carter tried to explain that while he hadn’t committed adultery, Jesus' teaching about the heart made him guilty of it. It’s a remarkably pious interview for a decidedly impious magazine- but it painted this “born again” as some kind of zealot. And while he would personally witness to his political and global friends and enemies he knew that politics did require him to get down in the mess. One of his favorite and most oft-quoted sayings came from Reinhold Niebuhr, the theologian who wrote: “To establish justice in a sinful world is the whole sad duty of the political order.”

And the political order sent him packing in 1980- but as another has pointed out it seems that Jimmy Carter is the first president to use the presidency as a stepping stone for a life of service.

And so whether you are consuming all the reports and stories or not. And whether you are inclined towards his political and social views or not… we do well to see a man who tried to embody the pluralism of America with strong evangelical beliefs and actions which, to some, didn’t seem “strong” or “presidential”… and maybe in the scheme of things this was a good thing- James Earl Carter spent his last decades as a tireless volunteer and witness to his faith as a born again believer in Jesus Christ. Born in in 1924, Jimmy Carter was 100 years old.

The last word for today from the daily lectionary and John 8:

12 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 31st of December 2024, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who knows that Plains, Georgia, Carter's hometown, was named for the plains of Dura in the book of Daniel- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man serious about Sean McVay, though… brilliant, a leader, critical but positive… I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.