On Monday, September the 30th former President James Earl Carter turned 100 years old, and became the first centennial President. On Sunday, December 29th, 2024, God called President Carter home. What a God we serve! Almost two years ago medical professionals placed President Carter in hospice care and declared that he had two weeks to live.
President Carter spiritually understood that death and life are in the power of the tongue. More importantly, death is swallowed up in victory in God. Therefore: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (1 Corinthians 15: 55). In the 2024 Presidential election between Former President Donald J. Trump and VP Kamala Harris, President Carter declared that he would Godly cast his vote for VP Harris for LIFE, not death. James Earl Carter became President in 1976 defeating President Gerald Ford. President Carter was affectionately called by some as “Jimmy Who”, because he was relatively unknown on the national political scene. James Earl Carter was the Governor of Georgia, a peanut farmer, and affectionately known as Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter’s campaign raised two overriding concerns: can religion be effectively used to revitalize American culture and political-governmental processes?
Of course, attempting to be morally right in politics is a no, no, and twenty-first century Trump-style politics is a classic example. Secondly, can Blacks and the disinherited poor (the underclass) coupled with the support of socio-economic visionaries alter power arrangements, political institutions, value orientations, and eventually the social system of reward allocation to create a more economic democratic egalitarian society? As Governor of Georgia, Carter had demonstrated that he was a Godly rational and efficient managerial steward. America this is something that Donald J. Trump has clearly dem- onstrated that he can never spiritually understand or become, because he is too self-centered.
President Carter’s interview in Playboy magazine was a profound example of Jimmy Carter’s spiritual comfort level in his own skin as well as his sense of Christian morality. This was a bit too much for the hypocritical moral majority population to accept. In 1976 a Playboy interviewer asked Carter had
he ever committed adultery, and Carter answered yes, many times in my mind, but never in my body, because I have lusted after beautiful women! The moral ideals and parameters that President Carter used to describe the universe and mankind’s place in the scheme of things was foreign, even obsolete to some Whites, especially Christian Whites.
In fact, the ideas and ideals that Carter used to de- scribe God, the nature of man, moral values, and societal institutional arrangements made him a different kind of Southerner. Carter’s spiritual-moral character despite his Southern roots made him overwhelming acceptable to Blacks, because he was viewed as a spiritual-moral man with a God conscience. Thus, political processes totally set apart from God conscience had brought America to the edge of the moral bankruptcy cliff, resulting in the election of Donald J. Trump in 2016, and reelected in 2024 after becoming a convicted criminal. Trump is America’s Greatest National Disaster. However, in 2024 the world knows who James Earl Carter is: peacemaker and inspirational spirit of Habitat for Humanity (home building for the lest them among us). America, the world is a better place today because of the work of James Earl Carter as a gentle soul, moral man, and peacemaker.
President Carter was guided by Faith in God, humanity, and America. Jimmy Who’s simplicity, just like the simplicity of Jesus Christ, is a great spiritual moral example of how we ought to love and serve one another. God gave Noah the rainbow sign; could God be giving us the climate-change-sign; warm it up with love and service for one another, because too many Americans desire something for nothing based upon social class privileges and skin-tone. The Presidency of James Earl Carter raised this spiritual question: do Americans have the courage to live out the true meaning of America’s Constitutional Creed? Carter’s life after the Presidency reminds us of the Two Great Commandments: Love God and love your neighbor. America, we have experienced the “Old South”, migrated to the “New South”, and President James Earl Carter sought to take America to a state of spiritual being where there is no South, only children of God. Amen!
