Celebrating Carter
Sightings 1/23/06
Celebrating Carter
-- Martin E. Marty
In weekly Sightings and biweekly "M.E.M.O" and Context, my regular
outlets, readers may have noticed that I very rarely "do" presidents,
especially sitting ones. Today an ex-president comes into periscope
range, since it's exactly a quarter of a century since Jimmy Carter left
office. It would seem to be a safe time to get distance on him. Still,
this "best ex-president we ever had" stirs slurs -- as in the weeks-ago
Wall Street Journal's trashy trashing of his new bestseller, Our
Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis. Carter the pol knows that
politics is not a sport for the timid, and is used to the give-and-take of
criticism, some of which he gives in his new book.
Having just finished co-directing a project at Emory University in
Atlanta, I had several chances for close-up views again on this fellow
retiree. On two occasions he made public appearances to advance our
project, so one might say I "have an interest." My main interest,
however, is to say that if I don't speak up once, in measured admiration
and immeasurable gratitude, I'd be an ingrate.
Let his detractors say what they wish; Mr. Carter strikes me as someone
who can be at ease with himself. Millions of voters in scores of nations
are better off for his (and his team's) monitoring of their elections.
Literally hundreds of thousands of the poor, especially in Africa, are
alive and healthy, thanks to Carter-inspired ventures (for example,
against river blindness and guinea worm infestation).
This is not the place to review Carter, but a review of Carter's book by
Gary Wills, which concentrates so much on religion (as it has to if it
wishes to "catch" the man), inspires some quoting and commenting. Wills
compares religion-in-politics in 1972, when he first tracked Governor
Carter in Georgia, with politics-in-religion today. One unavoidable
theme, for Carter and Wills, is the 180-degree turn by the Southern
Baptist Convention majority since Carter's younger years. Such Southern
Baptists "have become as authoritarian as their former antitype, the Roman
Catholic hierarchy" -- something that grieves Carter, who grew up in the
Convention back when Baptists were Baptists. Now by their version of
pushing religion into the public square they are doing the most
un-Baptistic thing conceivable: asking "the state" to do much of "the
church's" job. Wills writes in the New York Review of Books, my citing of
which will taint me, for "hanging out" with and quoting such sorts. (His
indictment, in the February 9 issue, merits reading.)
Wills says better than I could who Carter is, so I will quote from his
conclusion: "Carter is a patriot. He lists all the things that Americans
have to be proud of. That is why he is so concerned that we are
squandering our treasures, moral even more than economic. He has come to
the defense of our national values, which he finds endangered. He proves
that a devout Christian does not need to be a fundamentalist or fanatic,
any more than a patriotic American has to be punitive, narrow, and
self-righteous. He defends the separation of church and state because he
sees with nuanced precision the interactions of faith, morality, politics,
and pragmatism."
Happy 25th, President Emeritus and tenured post-retirement public servant.
Martin E. Marty's biography, current projects, upcoming events,
publications, and contact information can be found at www.illuminos.com.
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