Jimmy Carter, Rosalynn Carter, and my Christianity problem

(Please note that I wrote this when Rosalynn Carter died. With the passing of Jimmy Carter it’s worth a revisit.)

If you have read many of my blog posts and/or newspaper columns you are undoubtedly aware of my disdain for those who call themselves “Christian” while they act like the most hateful souls on earth.  Their hypocrisy disgusts me, and the damage they have done to our country may be irreversible.

The death of Rosalynn Carter this week, and the prospect of her husband, Jimmy, following her presently has got me thinking again about my “Christianity problem.”  I was raised Catholic and attended Catholic schools from the 2nd semester of kindergarten until the start of high school.  Had we not moved to Michigan, I undoubtedly would have attended a Catholic high school in Ohio.  I was an altar boy, serving mass for many years.  I took all the sacraments and even got married in a Catholic church the first time around.  My kids were baptized Catholic…you know, the whole Italian Catholic thing.

I fell away from the Catholic Church in college and then more so in graduate school as the combination of the priest sex scandals and my studies of the Church’s close ties with Latin American dictators came into my consciousness.  The Church that had been such a part of my life had clearly abandoned its mission and I saw it for what it probably had always been…a haven for the greedy, using people’s faith to enhance their own power and wealth.  I think I have been in a church about 5 times in the past 40 years for a couple of weddings and a funeral or two, but I know I will never return voluntarily for spiritual guidance or comfort.

In all that time, however, I never lost my connection with the teachings of Jesus Christ.  In a world where greed, hate, and discrimination rule the day, the message of “love your neighbor” has always been powerful and much needed.  But so many people have used that message to shield their own abhorrent behavior, that I will always be suspicious of those who claim to be devout Christians.

This was quite true in 1976 when Jimmy Carter was running for President against Gerald Ford.  I had plenty of reasons to be pissed at Gerald Ford, even if he was a Michigan man.  His pardon of Richard Nixon denied our country the opportunity to have genuine closure on the dark days of Nixon and his cronies.  Ford sold us out, but at least he wasn’t an evangelical “Christian”.  On election day, my vote went to Ford.

Like much of the country, we didn’t know a lot about Jimmy Carter before that campaign.  It wasn’t that I disliked Carter’s policies…I just didn’t trust what looked like another man hiding behind the facade of “Christianity.”  When Carter did his infamous Playboy interview in which he declared that God had forgiven him even though he had “lust in his heart” at times in his life, it was a giant scandal.   Evangelicals, who had been supporting Carter, fled over to Ford because even though Carter had not had any affairs, the idea that he looked at women and lusted after them was just too much.  (I suppose he should have just declared that he had grabbed women by the pussy…that seems to be what “Christian” voters prefer.)  

Carter won that election anyway, of course.  It didn’t take me long to realize how short-sighted I had been in rejecting him.  He remains only one of two Presidents in my lifetime whose character I truly admire.  Carter was not a fake Christian.  He was the real deal.  He fought hard for human rights around the globe.  He worked tirelessly (and against the grain) to include human rights considerations as part of foreign policy decisions.  He was a strong, bright, and determined leader who had a chance to help clean up the mess the United States was making of the world with our support for dictators around the globe.  

In 1980, I enthusiastically supported Carter because I saw my country starting to live up to its promise as a fighter for genuine liberty and human rights.  But of course Americans overwhelmingly rejected him for another fake Christian cold warrior who brought our country (and the world) to the brink of destruction on several occasions.  In the early days of his administration, Reagan began to undo all the progress Carter had made in establishing the United States as the principled country we all expected it to be.  He even took solar panels off the roof of the White House because being concerned about the environment was “wimpy” in Reagan’s words.

In the time since he left office, Carter and his wife Rosalynn have dedicated their lives to following the basic tenets of their faith.  He served on many commissions monitoring human rights and elections around the globe.  Into his 80s he was still building houses for Habitat for Humanity.  Their message never wavered: “Love your neighbor.” 

It is their lives well lived that contrast so sharply with barbers who won’t cut the hair of those with whom they disagree, with bakers who won’t make cakes for neighbors who don’t love in the way the baker approves, and with politicians who work tirelessly to deny basic human rights to immigrants, women, LGBTQ folks, people of color, etc.  In the name of Christianity, they vilify the very people Jesus told them to love.  

So as we say good-bye to Rosalynn Carter and prepare to do the same to Jimmy, we will have lost two people who spent their entire lives walking the talk and following in the footsteps that Jesus had so boldly laid out for us.  Now we are left with a whole lot of people whose abhorrent behavior serves to erase those footprints and leaves us wondering what evil comes next in the name of “Christianity.”