Transcripts For CSPAN2 The Life Of Jimmy Carter 20140714

Historian and priest ronald examines the role religion plays. The report is that the progressive evangelicalism is a factor in winning the 1976 president ial election however the same evangelical population that supported the president s First Campaign in the searc sear him four years later in favor of Ronald Reagan. This is just over an hour. Welcome. Its a pleasure for me tonight to introduce randall who is the family professor of arts and sciences at dartmouth college. I have followed his career for a long time. His undergraduate work was done where my father was 18 and my brother attended that school at the same time and randy has turned into one of our great modern american historians. One of the things that makes him great is that he minds the resources of the president ial libraries. He has come here to the Carter Library and has gone through and found a very interesting document that other people have not seen before and he has done that at other president ial libraries. Combined with that he is also mind the resources of the archives on various evangelical organizations that have become involved in politics. And in addition to that on top of his Research Skills come he is an excellent writers ive had the privilege of reading many of his books including the one thats just come out. And i can tell you that as much as i followed the subjects and have done my own research there were many points i came across new information and said wow that really explains whats going on. So if you want to understand the difference in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s and in case youve forgotten there were very significant differences and you want to know about the sort of transition to the time when jimmy carter was president of the time when Ronald Reagan was president. If you want to understand the role of billy graham in american politics or the role of Jerry Falwell in american politics this is the book for you. I highly recommend it and as i say i read it personally and found it very fascinating and i think all of you will, too. Hearing some comments by the author himself to give you randy balmer. [applause] thank you for that kind introduction. Its wonderful to be back here. I did a lot of archival work at the Carter Center and the last time i was here the museum was being refurbished and i spent more than three hours this afternoon going to be exhibits the guards had to chase me away. I was engrossed by it to them and it was remarkable and i probably learned a few things that i didnt know before going through the museum. I want to talk about carter tonight obviously and tell you first of all my interest as indicated. I went to a Small College in northern illinois. I went to a small School Called Trinity College in 1970s and it was during my time as an undergraduate at the jimmy carter burst out of the natural scene. I had grown up as an evangelical and was attending an evangelical college and what was so remarkable to me is that he talked otalked an unabashedly at being a bornagain christian which is what we use to describe ourselves because we were always cowering when we did that. And carter wasnt coming jimmy carter came on the scene and said im a bornagain christian and this was for me and many other is a kind of wakeup call. Here was a man that was running for president and being taken seriously and who was able to talk about his faith in very unabashed and unapologetic ter terms. I followed his career rather closely over the years and resolved at some point i wanted to write a book about jimmy carter. I have to say ive been kind of brewing with this idea for probably at least two decades now. And over the last decade or so i hahave spent a good bit of time researching when my schedule permitted me to do that. The authors are always making claims for themselves which is not justified but it is i think the first biography of jimmy carter to take his faith seriously as a way of understanding both himself, his conduct and beyond. But also the very turbulent religious times in which he lived, and thats what i want to talk about a little today because i think that is the core of the book. I will do a few things in terms of background im sure many of you know the details already. Jimmy carter was born october 11924 in georgia and he is the first president ever born in the hospital because his mother was a kind of itinerant nurse and he was able to be born in a hospital for the first time in american history. Jimmy carter went to Plains High School and went on to the u. S. Naval academy which had been his dream ever since he was a boy. And then he was commissioned into the navy and accepted in the Nuclear Submarine program and then in 1953, his father James Earl Carter senior succumbed to his two pack a day habit and jimmy carter was granted leave to go back to plains and attend his fathers bedside. That was for him a regulatory moment because he saw what his fathers life that meant to so many people in planes, things he didnt know about his father. The time for example that he provided money to the family so they could buy new clothes to celebrate their daughters graduation from high school, something they couldnt have afforded to do other times. Otherwise the time he carried peoples mortgages when they were too poor and too strapped to do so the time that he had extended credit to various people in the family and jimmy carter returned to his posting in schenectady new york one thing to have a life much more like his father to do the kind of good things that his father had done in the community. The one dissent about the decision to leave the navy was Rosalynn Carter who was not amused by this development. Apparently as nearly as i can tell and there are people in the audience that can confirm or deny this, the car trip from schenectady new york to plains georgia was conducted in almost total silence between the two. Two very strongwilled people. And in this case, jimmy carter won that debate or that argument. But apparently the word divorce profit of at least once in the course of the transition. Carter of course takes over the business, not successful in the first year less than 20 200 ia profit for the carter business interests but then he quickly begins to build this into a growing concern. He also begins to look more broadly at service of the community including on the Sumter County school board and then on his 38th birthday october 31, 1962 he gets out of bed and puts on his sunday trousers rather than his work trousers and goes to america to fight over the Georgia State ste Senate Without having consulted rosalynn before doing so. When i asked mr. Carter about this about a year ago in planes he said i cant believe i did that. Because he wouldnt dream of making such a decision like that today without consulting his wife. But times are very different in 1962 and they are now in the 21st century. The election of course is contested because of the widespread corruption in the county. I forget the numbers but they are in the museum. There were Something Like 420 ballots that were cast in the county, and only 300 some registered voters and for some reason in fact the voters managed to vote in alphabetical order down to the second and third letters in their last names it was quite a remarkable day for georgia politics. Carter of course finds out about this and he is morally outraged. If you read turning point, which i have to say that is my Favorite Book of his that has moral outrage and righteous indignation and he had been robbed of his election and the campaign in january of 1963. He then runs for governor in 1966 and he runs what would qualify at the time as a racial moderate coming and he is beaten by apple people left their maddux who wa was mr. Reyes and george of course for his segregationist ways the day after Lyndon Johnson got the Civil Rights Act of 1964 leicester agreed in the restaurant with the ax handle threatening to drive them away or driving them away from eating in his restaurant because he didnt want a desegregation at restaurants. Of course he said use this to catapult himself to the governorship. He lost 22 pounds in that campaign because of his vigorous campaigning. He lost a lot of money, the family put a lot of money into that campaign and he returns to plains not really sure what hes going to do. There are family accounts that have him Walking Around the fields and just not knowing how to procee proceed into very ofth tears in his eyes and then of course the following year he has a famous encounter with his sister, a costal evangelist and he has a recommitment of his life to jesus but does seem to be very transformative. He speaks of that experience not as a bornagain experience that occurred back in 1935 at the planes that just church that as a rejuvenation of his faith. On the heels of that, jimmy carter goes on the two Mission Trips one to pennsylvania with other baptist laymen going around knocking on doors to tell people about jesus and again in Springfield Massachusetts in november of that year with a cubanamerican pastor from brooklyn to believe it is proclaimed brookland. This was again a very informative moment for jimmy carter. At the end of the week together carter asks the reverend you know, how why it is he is such a strong christian believer and why he is so effective dealing with other people. And he tells carter that the secret to a life of faith or being a good christian is two things. To love god and to love the person in front of you at any given time and he repeats this many times over the course of his life as being a formative moment. He never loses sight of the Georgia Statehouse in the 1970s he launches yet another campaign at this time. A jimmy carter does quote the segregationist vote in this campaign and the final days of the campaign he endorses leicester maddux and the governors of georgia could have succeeded themselves and carter endorsed him and seeks some of the segregationist endorsement. He is uneasy about that and there is good evidence for that. He tells the united fund you wont like my campaign but you will like my administration and there is some evidence i think that it is uncompetitive but i think that there is some evidence after that campaign carter apologizes to his primary opponent in the campaign for the conduct during the campaign, but that it was not exactly a sterling moment in the life of jimmy carter and i think that he realizes that and regrets it. He takes the office as the governor of virginia recalled 1971 and famously says that racial determination is over this is in part what elevates him in terms of the national profile. The New York Times picked up on that and the following day in the front page there is an article about the inauguration governor and what he said to the people of georgia. And within several weeks or actually a couple of months Time Magazine puts him on the cover as an example of a new south governor that is a postracial governor and i have to mention that article but carter is the one who is on the cover of Time Magazine. Carter almost immediately begins to think about running for president after being the governor of georgia only who knows maybe a few days before he begins looking towards the larger rise in. And in fact about the time within a day or two of George Mcgoverns cataclysmic loss to Richard Nixon in the president ial campaign of 1962. The advisors begin to talk about the rise to the presidency. At the end of 1973 or the beginning of 1974 the remarkable events took place within six months of each other. And here the narrative is going to urge a little bit more towards religion and faith. Over thanksgiving weekend in 1973 in Chicago Illinois at the ymca at the southside of chicago, 55 evangelicals meet at the ymca and hair out a document called the chicago declaration that evangelical social concern. This is remarkable because in the strain of evangelicalism that is offered in the document and by the way it is available on the web you can look at it for your self, it is part of what i call progressive evangelicalism that takes this mandate i believe from the new testament that talked about having peacemakers to turn the e other cheek and so forth, but also historically the antecedent was evangelicals in the 19th century into the early 20th centuries who are very much concerned about those on the margins of society. In the antebellum period in particular coming out of an event that historians call the second great awakening around the turn of the 19th century. There was an evangelical reform that really did appreciate American Society in profound ways over the course of the 19th century. They would be one of the People Associated with this probably the most important Person Associated in this movement. But this movement sought to Reform Society according to the norms. They were very much involved in abolitionism to try to eradicate slavery but they were also involved in such issues as Prison Reform and the whole idea of the penitentiary here he came into vote at this time. The idea of a place where a criminal could become penitent and then we hope constructively rejoin society in a much more salutary way. The issue of equal rights for women including Voting Rights which of course in the 19th century was a radical idea. Evangelicals were very much involved in the formation of the Common Schools or what we think about as Public Education today. As a way for those on the bottom run of society to aspire to a better life to try to aspire to move into the middle class. Other campaigns associated in the movement would be the campaign against doing which was inaugurated by the presbyterian minister in connecticut because they thought it was barbaric. There are peace crusades in the early part of the century and even a campaign of gun control. Imagine that in the early part of the 19th century. All of these were motivated and animated by evangelicals who were trying to make the world a better place. What i find unites all of these reform impulses is that they were directed towards those on the margins of society. Those that jesus called the least of these. This is a tradition within the american evangelicalism that most people dont know about but in the 19th century of the robust tradition that really did deserve to rehabilitate and reform in American Society in remarkable ways particularly the antebellum period but it moved over into the 20th century as well as people like William Jennings bryan who was an evangelical and threetime albeit failed democratic nominee for president who was very much conscious about womens rights and workers rights to organize and issues of this sort in the early part of the 20th century. So these people gathering in chicago in november of 1973 actually are trying to rehabilitate this tradition of the progressive evangelicalism which it kind of fallen away from various reasons which i would be happy to go into later but i dont want to spend time dealing with that right now. And this document contains statements about militarism, about the gap between rich and poor in American Society and of the scandathescandal that peopld hungry anywhere in the world come for women, which again in the early 1970s was something of a radical idea at least among many religious folks. Also, the lingering scourge of racism and they sought to address these sort of things so that is one events that took place as i said in november of 1973. Less than six months later in athens georgia there was an event at the university of georgia law School Called law day and as many of you know it is a tradition at the university of georgia law school. The law school invites dignitaries like the Supreme Court justices and attorneys general and the senators into various people to address. The keynote speaker for that address was the senator from massachusetts, and a and the und speaker at that event was the te governor of georgia, jimmy carter. In the morning kennedy gives his keynote address which would have to do with the impeachment proceedings that were unfolding against Richard Nixon and carter then addresses the gathering and begins by saying that there were two very important influences on his life in terms of thinkers and theologians. One key quotes very often throughout his life at least since his time as the governor of georgia. He said this ha the sad duty ofs is to establish justice in a sinful world and carters quoted that passage very often but he said the second formative influence on him was the greek and wellknown theologian doctor lynn whose song in particular and going to work on maggies farm no more was a very important kind of regulatory song. He goes on to talk about the fact that among the politicians and particularly lobbyists in washington, the stack the deck was stacked against ordinary folks. These people, corporation corpon particular head of the money to hire lobbyists who very much themselves were appointed to regulatory agencies regulating their own businesses and corporations and how that was fundamentally unfair. He talked also about georgias prison population which he had taken an interest in when he was governor of georgia and said that overwhelmingly the present division of georgia consisted of those that were poor and couldnt afford adequate representation. And those that were more fluid and were able to in effect buy their way out of the justice system. And he wound up his presentation by sending some of the populist themes that he was already beginning to rehearse for his potential president ial run in 1976. And in the course of his remarks he noticed a ccharlie lis h. Oe audience slipping out and he figured that this journalist from Rolling Stone magazine was simply goin going out of the pag lot to refresh whatever adult beverage he was consuming that day but it turned out hundred thompson was going to his car to retrieve his tape recorder because he wanted to record something extraordinary. A politician who dared to tell the truth. Thompson later described carters speech as a bastard of speech and he said it was one of the most remarkable is not the e most remarkable speech that he had ever heard who is willing to take on the powerful interests and to speak the truth. So, within a sixmonth period you have a remarkable juxtaposition of the social concern and a lot of the themes that carter founded in his address in 1974. By the way, 40 years ago this month is when he gave that ms address. Carter then of course announces his candidacy for the presidency december 121974. The month before commanded a key projecting me on this so i want to get it right, the month before the organization had conducted the poll of interest in the president ial candidates on the part of the American People and among the 32 names they listed jimmy carters name was not among them. That is how dark he was when he announced the candidacy for president in 1974. Jimmy carter of course went on to be iowa and small towns of New Hampshire and was able to make a name for himself first and the caucasus at the end of january 1976 and then in New Hampshire where he becomes a part of the national conversation, and i think that in many ways one of the signal achievements of the campaign for president in 1976 was the fact that march 9, 1976 he beat George Wallace in the florida primary thereby effectively ending George Wallaces tenure at the presidency thereby vanquishing the nations most notorious segregationist from political viability and i dont think that jimmy carter gets the credit he deserves for having done that in 1976. He goes on to the Democratic National convention where he wins the nomination on the first ballot and then into the general election. He gives an interview to Playboy Magazine that appears on the 20th just a few weeks before the election and this is the famous interview where he said that he acknowledged he had left. It is utterly unremarkable but the press picked up on this and made a huge spectacle of it and carter began to sink in the polls since he lost 15 Percentage Points in the Approval Ratings were Favorability Ratings after the playboy interview. He wins the election over gerald ford and begins his presidency. Im happy to talk about the presidency itself. Im conscious of time here and im not going to talk so much about his specific endeavors or compulsions as president , but i want to focus again on the religious situation that i think is really quite remarkable and is the paradox between the life of jimmy carter. That is why is it that evangelical supporters in the great numbers of 1976 turn so dramatically against him four years later in 1980 . I think it is a fascinating story and that is one of the stories i try to tell in the book because it is a story that is often misunderstood and frankly just wrong. The standard narrative is that by the late 1970s, evangelicals were exercised over the road the way the ruling of 1973. That legalized abortion. Jerry falwell and others have stoked this story. Very often they refer to themselves as the new abolitionists trying to draw a parallel between the opposition to abortion and the opposition of antebellum evangelicals to the spirit of slavery into so it makes a great story. But there is actually a bit of fiction cant quite a bit of fiction and fact. Abortion for evangelicals simply wasnt an issue. They were considered a catholic issue for most of the 1970s. Let me provide a bit of evidence. I wont be able to get all of it but to give you a sense in 1969, the christianity today magazine which was kind of the flagship magazine of evangelicalism convened a conference in the society to talk about abortion as a moral issue. After the conference was over, they issued a statement saying we cant agree that abortion is a moral issue but we are inclined to allow abortion under certain circumstances. 1971 the Southern Baptist convention which im sure many of you know is what we doubt of liberalism passed a resolution meeting in st. Louis missouri calling for the legalization of abortion. The resolution they reaffirm in 1974 a year after the ruling and again in 1976 when the decision was handed down several prominent evangelical leaders including the former president of the Southern Baptist convention passed the First Baptist church in dallas texas and expressed his satisfaction with the ruling as marking an appropriate distinction between personal morality and public policy. My point in this evidence is to say that abortion was not the issue that organized evangelical preachers and others into the religious right. The quick story coming and im going to try to be brief about this although i would be happy to go into more details later. The quick story is that evangelical preachers in particular organized not to oppose abortion, but to defend racial segregation. The issue was of course the deep issue with the brown v. Board of education ruling of 54, that the foreground if she was the Civil Rights Act of 1964 pitch in title six forbade the racial segregation or the discrimination. By 1970, the Internal Revenue service was trying to enforce the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and issued a ruling opinion that said any organization that engages in racial segregation or Racial Discrimination is not by definition a charitable organization. Therefore, it has no claims on the taxexempt status. Now again i would be happy to go into details in the case that came out of the county in mississippi but the issue was the socalled segregation academies that are grew up especially in the south bu soutt entirely decided after the brown v. Board of education meeting of 1954. And the Internal Revenue service was trying to enforce this ruling which by the way was ratified by the District Of Columbia june 30, 1971 in the case called green v. Connolly. In the case of enforcing the provision, the provisions of the ruling the irs targeted the fundamentalist school in South Carolina called Bob Jones University which until 1971 did not admit africanamericans to the student body and at that point they admitted africanamerican as a parttime student at last a month on the campus of Bob Jones University. And until 1975 out of the fear of racial mixing did not admit a married africanamerican to the student body in other words still maintaining their racial policies and that is what god the attention of people like Jerry Falwell who said in some states it is easier to open a massage parlor than it is a christian school. Of course he had his own Segregation Academy in lynchburg virginia and this is what gets Jerry Falwell and these other features motivated. I think paul is the architect of the religious right have corroborated this and that he has personal conversations with him and his emphatic on this point. He said i was trying to get these people that means evangelicals involved in politics since the Goldwater Campaign of 64 and i couldnt get them interested. I tried everything i could think of. School prayer, the equal rights amendment, abortion, nothing of their contention until the school issue surfaced and that is what finally galvanized them to the political movement. There is a second part of the story for the rise of the religious right. The bob jones case in similar cases is what caught the attention of the evangelical leaders like falwell and others, but he was savvy enough to realize that he needed a different issue in order to get the grassroots evangelicals behind this new movement that we know of as the religious right. And what happens is that in 1978 in the elections, there is the answer finally comes to him in the elections of 1978 particularly in minnesota and iowa something remarkable happens. There are three statewide seats up for office in the senate and one of them is for the term of Hubert Humphrey into the governorship up for grabs in 1978. In iowa, dick clark was the incumbent democratic senator and going into the election, no poll showed clark behind, im sorry, no poll showed clark ahead by fewer than ten Percentage Points going into the final days of that election. What happens in both iowa and minnesota is that prolife picketed the Church Parking lots on the sunday before the election and in iowa, dick clark loses the election to roger jepson and in minnesota that prolife republicans capture all three of those elections. The governorship and both senate seats all of them on a prolife campaign. When i was doing research at the university of wyoming and where any which the correspondence crackle with excitement when the results of the 1978 election coming because he realizes hes got his issue that is going to galvanize this new movement of the religious right. And in fact he uses that to full advantage which of course goes against jimmy carter and evangelical who is running for the reelection against Ronald Reagan whose credentials are what is a more tenuous than jimmy carter. Ronald reagan for whatever his qualities was episodic churchgoer who by the way as the governor of california in 1967 had the most brutal bill in the country but by 1980 he had come around to the prolife position and that was good enough for paul and falwell and other leaders of the religious right. Carters face politically is also compromised by default people billy graham and i tread carefully here because a lot of people as do i have a great deal of respect for billy graham, but billy graham repeatedly throughout the 1980 president ial Campaign Gives assurance to carter himself or to the aid of his support and days later or earlier hes making phone calls to people like paul who was Ronald Reagans p5 Campaign Chair offering to do whatever he could to elect Ronald Reagan rather than jimmy carter in 1980. Although this is in the book i just give you a summary of this. Carter of course is defeated and then he goes back to the plains where he begins to construct his presidency and im going to try to wrap this up quickly so i can take some questions. We are standing here in one glorious manifestation of his post president ial years. I think the most distinct comment about jimmy carter in particular in the postpresidency came from the former president of Emory University said about jimmy carter the only person in history for whom the presidency with a steppingstone and i think it really does capture what jimmy carter has done. Apparently he isnt fond of that quotation but i think it does capture what he has been able to do. I called the book reading or for a number of reasons. I think in many ways he read and the nation after watergate. I try to impress this on students and they do not quite grasp i think how low we were as a nation in the 1970s in terms of our confidence in ourselves and also in our confidence particularly in institutions and in the presidency. Lyndon johnson lied to us about vietnam. Richard nixon lied to us about pretty much everything. And im exaggerating a little but of course, but jimmy carter comes along and says the same, i will never knowingly lie to the American People again. I tr tried to impress on studens these days what a radical idea that was in the 1970s with a a president who wouldnt lie to us. We were not used to that sort of thing and the fact that he was a Southern Baptist teacher i think also varnished his credentials and his probity. Jimmy carter has many faults and the book doesnt gloss over those. I think i try to treat them fairly and evenhandedly, but no one i think has seriously questioned his integrity. And his moral core and that is one of the great things about jimmy carter. Im going to close by reading a couple of short passages from the epilogue which was my visit to the planes a year ago june 2 actually. I wanted to go down to hear mr. Carter. And to read a couple of quick passages from that epilogue called sunday morning and planes. It is the baptist country. The back roads heading south of columbus are bracketed by the red soil and a scruffy pines and the buildings sporting names like shiloh marion Baptist Church, tiny grove missionary Baptist Church and the greater good of Baptist Church. Love jesus no matter what, one of the signs read, and another only jesus saves. Outside of princeton georgia still another sign and horrors take jesus for your savior and depressed in Baptist Church has posted each of the commandments on the chainlink fence for the edification of the travelers passing through town. Just before crossing from webster into Sumter County georgia the signs on the georgia highway 27 points towards the archery at home of jimmy carter and then the road eases into the plains where it becomes church street. The Business District not much more than a block b isp on the Railroad Tracks along the street from the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad depot that served as the Campaign Headquarters for carters improbable run for the presidency of 1976 and now has a museum commemorating the campaign. Plains georgia is no longer the habit of excitement that it was in the summer of 76 when the legions of journalists and thousands of tourists descended to learn more of the democratic nominee for president. Then, Lillian Carter at the train station and billy carter threw back a few beers and entertained visitors with quips like to have another that joined the peace corps and went to india when she was 68. A sister that races motorcycles and another that is a preacher. I have a brother that says he wants to be president of the United States and then pausing for a dramatic effect, im the only sane one in the family. Family. [laughter] after code talk about going to church with jimmy carter in the sunday school class and then the church and meeting with him after church and he takes me to the president ial house because he wants to give me a book that he got from the nightstand because he couldnt find a new copy of the book and he gave it to me kind of looking at her to see what her reaction would be rather apologetically. And then he goes on to another. In the next appointment i headed out of town on highway 61 also known as old plain highway by the way of the archery that parallels the seaboard coast line Railroad Tracks that young jimmy carter walked as a boy to so peanuts in town for pocket money. All of carters life has been characterized by a striving andd this insatiable ambition to rise above his circumstances as a country boy and a Navy Midshipmen antistate politician come as president and beyond as respected world leader and humanitarian. In the course of the sunday School Lesson carter had referred to the notion of the priesthood of being the first that each of us is responsible directly to god and that the priestly caste with irrigation of the Ministerial Authority and heated that relationship. But carter failed to note the other central criticism of the medieval catholicism works righteousness the popular understanding that individuals could earn salvation by good works. Protestants are equally susceptible seeking to prove by their good work that they are among the elect. As i passed the far farm and ary it was difficult to give the impression that carter was still driven and almost obsessed by the kind of works righteousness. He also believed in the value of work. On the farm hard work would sustain the family and bring profitability. After school diligent study would lead to better opportunities. In heinrich overs navy the hard work might find praise or a promotion. On the campaign trail working harder than your opponent an hour earlier every morning or shakinwereshaking more hands woo victory. Once in office the result to read every piece of legislation and attention to the minutia of negotiations would ensure success and re election. Carters term in the white house disrupted that calculus. He faced intractable odds as president , the nations chronic energy dependence, soaring Interest Rates and Islamic Revolution in iran. The political opposition from within his own party that simply wouldnt yield to the hard work or longer hours. Carters electoral loss in 1980 represented not only the end of his political career but also the repudiation of the notion that if he just worked harder and longer his efforts would be reworded. How could the ban debate could they not recognize he was doing everything humanly possible working as hard as he could to solve these problems . After absorbing the defeat and returning to planes, he reaffirmed his commitment to the works righteousness as a way to redeem his loss. The Carter Center would be an activist institution not merely a celebratory one. Habitat for humanity was nothing if not an activist organization. This former president wouldnt retire quietly into private life. There was work to be done. Eradicate indices, monitoring the elections, building houses, reprimanding dictators and politicians, teaching sunday school, heading off military confrontations come ending hunger, making peace. If carper work harder he could accumulate enough merit he might be able to tilt the balance of history in his favor. To a remarkable degree jimmy carters commitment to the works righteousness and with success to criticize and even to ridicule the presidency. Historians regard it more favorably albeit with something less than the unvarnished. Carters activities after leaving office earned him praise and even admiration. The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize provided perhaps the ultimate validation of the works righteousness. At what point does carter reprieve from this exertion and when did he relax and settle into the retirement . Certainly not on a sunday. Even after teaching sunday school, attending church, posing with tourists, fielding questions from a biographer and massaging habitat for humanity donors. As i knows he did on highway 61 towards the archery carter was speeding off to the next event on a crowded schedule. The president pushing 90yearsold was still a restless man consumed by a kind of benevolent describing as the centuries earlier those that subscribe to the ethic of the works righteousness can never be certain he had accumulated enough merit. Jimmy carter doesnt lack so much for passion as he does. The ma man whose improbable election of 1976 reading the nation from watergate finally earned his own redemption. Jimmy carter himself, however, may be the last to know. Thank you. [applause] we will take a few minutes of questionquestions and did you ha question just wait for the microphone to come and you dont need to grab the microphone but lets take about ten minutes or so of questions. In the 60s it seems like it was to differentiate between the fundamentalist and the cultural differences and now its all in the newspapers that dont know anything about religion. It seems to me again, thats they go back for the evangelical. That is a great question among fundamentalist and evangelical as an. Of Jerry Falwell himself said at one point that i if fundamentalt iif fundamentaljustice and evans mad about something. And its not a Bad Commission frankly because it suggests the difference not so much in theology but temperament. He always wondered who would identify himself as a fundamentalist rather than evangelical because he thought evangelicals were prone to compromise the eerie reverberations of the tea party stuff that you hear these days and that sort of rhetoric. He thought evangelicals were willing to compromise and he wanted to 18 a kind of hard edge. So youre right. The terms are so want interchangeable and it is a disposition and kind of militancy on the part of the fundamentalists rather than evangelicals. But youre right a lot of people do kind of complete the two in part because there isnt a great deal of theological distinction between the two. I was wondering if you could tell us your opinion on the kind of juxtaposition of antiaborti antiabortion, expansion of alcohol and guns in georgia. Im sure there are People Better qualified to comment and i. Arthen i. Are you suggesting there is a sort of linkg . Syndicate seems like over here is antiabortion and then alcohol and guns were on this side so it seems like it is the opposite. In terms of libertarian sentiments . It is fascinating to me. I dont want to be partisan here, but it does strike me on the face of it as curious that the very people or at least pretend to be the various people that talk about Less Government and less interference in private lives are willing to work for the wall that would be say more intrusive. Its a great paradox nobody has explained to me exactly how that works. But arguably theres the paradox of thon the other side of the spectrum as well that is people who are in favor of more regulation on the issue of abortion and dont want any regulation whatsoever and have a prochoice position so there is a great deal of contradiction but i think it underscores that for evangelicals frankly and i think in the 1970 the 1970s thed that its not necessarily a logical issue for them and they had to be alerted to it and there are other things that happened in the late 1970s that account for that. A film series that featured a man by the name of Francis Schaeffer and who of course becomes Ronald Reagans surgeonn general that really does kind of educated evangelicals about the abortion issue and how this was part of a pattern of dk in a society but as i said throughout the 70s and 79 its not an evangelical issue. Im curious if a Lasting Imprint of carter speaking and another president , bill clinton spoke about his faith very freely and comfortably with the current president and there was an article in the New York Times about a month ago that he has kind of showcased here feels uncomfortable speaking about faith and the conversation of faith in america he doesnt go to surface publicly, he doesnt reference the literature or bible versus comfortably. Do you think that is a legacy carter was able to open and sustained or that door has kind of closed . That is a great question. I addressed this issue and im not necessarily trying to push the book that i addressed this in the book called god in the white house an and we argue its John Kennedys address to the Houston Ministerial Association on september 12, 1960 at the rice hotel really did establish this idea in american politics, american president ial politics that faith is separate. That is what he did in that speech is told the voters effectively to bracket the faith of catholicism when they went to the polls and they argue what i call the kennedy paradigm really did persist in politics up until 1976 jimmy carter and i will test you on this. How many people here could tell me what Lyndon Johnsons religious affiliation was . [laughter] most of the baptist but its disciples of christ. The point is most people dont know that because it wasnt part of the conversation. In a backhanded way i think that nixon reintroduces it because when 1976 Campaign Rolls around, we americans want to have some sort of a sense of a candidates moral compass because we lived through the debacle of the nixon presidency and that question has persisted. Its dying away now. I think the farther we get from nixon unless salient that particular question is i isnt a president ial politics, but one of the problems in that question is that we dont know how to ask the question. We want to know are the candidates we vote for for president are they morally reliable that is due they have a moral compass . We dont know how to ask the question. If you like to ask is are you religioureligious independence d because the flawed assumption behind that question is someone that isnt a affiliated or religious couldnt be a moral person. If it is simply false and we know that its false that is a bad question and i think that we are getting away from that question the farther we are from nixon through carters campaign represented i think and im reversal of the kennedy. Im of the voter indifference to a candidates faith and the fact that he spoke about it so openly and freely was certainly a big part of his appeal. I loved your closing sentence. Maybe he will be the last one to know. And im sure you gave him a copy of this book. What did he think . What was his feedbac feedback ck steve is more likely to get a review in im. I just sent it to him last week come out less than a week. So hes not the last one to know. [laughter] i want to be clear in saying that carter is kind of animated by or obsessed by righteousness i dont think that is a bad thing. He has done some wonderful things and the world is a better place because of his activism. I dont question that for a moment. But he does seem to be driven into steve is nodding even approaching 90yearsold he seems to have no indication of letting up. What do you make of president carters continuing from his nomination to think of the most recent book as perhaps one example, but hes not in the advocate for choice whatever his thoughtthoughts maybe that isnt we know him for. The relationship in the Southern Baptist convention is to say i described in the book as a dysfunctional marriage with the frequent separation and the reconciliation is just not good. It began to go south so to speak in 1979 when you have the conservative takeover of the Southern Baptist convention down in new orleans. And ive asked carter about this and he is told that as his real wake up call that he was in trouble with evangelicals. One of the Southern Baptist leaders comes to visit him in the white house shortly thereafter bailey smith and at the end of the conversation with the president , he said adding. Raising president carter a lot of us are praying that you will abandon your faith, your religion of secular humanism and carter records in the diary to go back to the living quarters of the white house that night and asks rosalynn what is the lead co. What does secular humanism mean . The coveted as a fraught relationship and i frankly dont think that he will ever reconcile. Who voted effectively at the Baptist Church but carter kept his piece about that and tell leading the whitehouse but in part because of the racial issues as the episcopal priests also in academia right now spend a the last seven years researching jimmy carter0ep to talk intelligently i did not want to let you get out of here without that. [laughter] so that is too broad but one example of the Supreme Court ruling that the town in new york can start the Public Meetings with prayers. One of the legal rationale is they said it is not constitutional because they are so ceremonial but basically they dont mean anything any more. The Supreme Court has ruled prayer does not mean anything people are not raised with religious background or households and that is what they no. So where is religion in this country . [laughter] what should we do about that . [applause] i would be happy to do that question as another lecture or another semester but you cannot be more right to. Then i keep saying the issue of separation of church and state, they are two fundamental characteristics of baptist one is baptisms the other one is conscious separation of church and state and what people mess is a very perceptive question. In that Roger Williams talked about separating the garden of the church by means of a wall of separation. And jefferson pick set up but the construct the statement puritans are religious but not members. Right . When they talk about wilderness to talk about desolation as a place ofu]k danger were evil lurks. To talk about protecting the garden of the church when he says is lets protect the integrity over politics of the state in that is the genius in my judgment. Let me give you an example. In the judge from alabama i was called as an Expert Witness in that case it i was one of the few baptist frankly because in then you fetish and trivialize and when the judge rules and i will get it later. It was unconstitutional and the workers were preparing but one of the protests screen to get your hands off my god. One talks but i graven image. Precisely Roger Williams point that when you do that sort of thing that if it is meaningless you have to realize the faith and that is the danger and theyre not worried if it will start crumbling in idaho or upstate new york. I worry about the integrity of the state. This is the decision that just came down3nq. Thank you. [applause] this is a fascinating look at jimmy carter. You will want to get a copy of redeemer. Thinking about more time. [applause]