In Gratitude for Jimmy Carter

It was in March of last year that I started drafting this article. I had just heard that ex-President Carter had gone into hospice care. I was preparing to post an article about him as soon as possible after his passing—but he is still alive and has recently said he has to live long enough to vote for Kamala Harris! So, I am posting this on the day before his 100^th birthday. 

Jimmy Carter in 2021

James Earl Carter, Jr., who “everybody” knows as Jimmy, is the only U.S. President I have shaken hands with—and on two separate occasions. Although not agreeing with him on everything, I have highly admired him for many decades now and am grateful for his long life and meritorious work.

Although I have mentioned Jimmy in several blog posts, the most I wrote about him was in the article posted on the day before his 90^th birthday, on September 30, 2014 (see here). Now near the end of his long, productive life, I am writing mainly regarding two important emphases he made as POTUS.

Part of what I have included in this post is based on Randall Balmer’s 2014 book Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter. While having great respect for the author, I did not particularly like the title of that book: I thought the term redeemer applied most aptly to Jesus Christ.

Recently, though, I read “Redeemer President,” the fifth chapter of Balmer’s book and was quite favorably impressed with what he wrote there—and I understood what he meant by Jimmy being a “redeemer.”

As Balmer explains, it is hard to imagine Carter being elected president “had it not been for Richard Nixon.” As the new president took the oath of office in January 1977, he “represented a clean break with the recent past, an opportunity to redeem the nation” (pp. 76, 77).

Early in 1977, Carter called the nation’s attention to the energy crisis. That was particularly in his April 18 “Address to the Nation on Energy” (see here). It was in that speech that he declared, [“”]

Our decision about energy will test the character of the American people and the ability of the President and the Congress to govern. This difficult effort will be the "moral equivalent of war."

His early recognition of the growing ecological problem was noted in what I called “the most important book you’ve never read” in this March 2023 blog post).

William Cotton, the author of that book, Overshoot (1980), mentions Carter favorably several times in his powerful book and writes most about Carter’s speech in July 1979. The title of that address was “Crisis of Confidence,” but it became known as his “malaise speech.” (Click here to read the transcript.)

That 1979 talk was an important one—and was basically correct. But it was not well received and was detrimental to Carter politically—and it was one of several reasons why he was soundly defeated in the 1980 election.

In a perceptive February 2023 article, though, David French wrote “The Wisdom and Prophecy of Carter’s Malaise Speech” (see here). The eminent NYTimes columnist averred that “Carter’s greatest speech was delivered four decades too soon.”

Carter’s emphasis on human rights was another key element of his presidency. Balmer wrote that “Carter sought to nudge the United States away from the reactive anticommunism of the Cold War and toward a policy that was more collaborative, less interventionist, and sensitive above all to human rights” (p. 79).

That emphasis was grounded in Carter’s Christian faith. “Jimmy Carter’s religious values were never far from his presidency or his policy” is the title of a March 2023 post on ReligionNews.com, and “human rights” is the first topic of several mentioned in that perceptive article.**

World peace is the second topic given in the above piece. Carter is quoted as saying, “There’s no doubt in my mind that the greatest violator of human rights that we know is armed conflict.” Consequently, “Carter’s presidency made the biblical concept of shalom seem less of a distant dream.”

These are just some of the reasons I have deep gratitude for Jimmy Carter and honor him on this day before his 100^th birthday. My double hope is that he will still be alive on January 20 and lucid enough to enjoy fully VP Harris’s inauguration as the 47^th POTUS.

_____

**That article (found here) was written by Lovett H. Weems, Jr., who for 18 years was president of Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City before moving to a faculty position at Wesley Seminary in Washington, D.C., in 2003.

Note: I learned from Heather Cox Richardson’s September 27 newsletter that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which has provided invaluable help before, during, and following last week’s landfall of Hurricane Helene, was initially created under President Jimmy Carter in 1979. In that piece, Richardson also writes that Project 2025, calls for slashing FEMA’s budget and returning disaster responses to states and localities. 

 

Shall We Dance?: Considering an All-inclusive Worldview

This is my third blog post regarding worldviews. On July 30, I wrote (here) about the importance of expanding one’s worldview. The theme of my August 20 post was the sadness of shrinking one’s worldview. In this article, please consider the all-inclusive worldview (my term) presented by Jon Paul Sydnor in his 2024 book, The Great Open Dance: A Progressive Christian Theology.*¹  

You may think it strange, but I never learned to dance. Growing up in a traditional Southern Baptist church, social dancing was frowned upon—and I didn’t have any trouble with that. In the last 20 years, though, I have read three theology books with “Dance” in the title.

The first of those was Molly Marshall’s 2003 book, Joining the Dance: A Theology of the Spirit. Seven years ago, I read Richard Rohr’s The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation (2016). Then this month I finished reading Sydnor’s engaging new book.

These three books are largely, but not wholly, about the Christian concept of the Trinity, and all three authors write about the Greek word perichōrēsis, which I became aware of when reading Marshall’s book.

In 2022 (here), Rohr wrote, “Trinitarian theology says that God is a ‘circular’ rotation (perichoresis) of total outpouring and perfect receiving among three intimate partners.” That “circular rotation” is depicted as “the divine dance” in Rohr’s book noted above.*²

(I am quite sure that such “circular rotation” is quite different from the sexually stimulating social dancing that I have eschewed since my teenage years.)

The “great open dance” views all reality as being fully interrelated. Dance partners are obviously not one; they are separate selves. But they also are not two. Sydnor says the same is true for everything.

In interfaith discussions in Japan, my Japanese Buddhist friends sometimes talked about the term/concept funi (不二), which literally means not two. In his first chapter, Sydnor points out that “'not-two' refers to the unity-in-difference upon which our universe is based.” This is a nondual worldview.*³

Sydnor continues: “Nondualism asserts that all reality is inherently related.” Thus, “nondualism offers intellectual resistance to the false divisions that cause our suffering, implicitly condemning sexism, racism, classism, nationalism, … and every other divisive worldview.”

“The Persons of the Trinity Relate to One Another in a Divine Dance” is the title of one subjection in Sydnor’s first chapter. There he says, “When a skilled couple dances you cannot detect who is leading…. Their movements appear spontaneously generated.”

And so it is with the Trinity: “They [the ‘Persons’ of the Trinity] dance freely, spontaneously, always in relation to one another but never determined by one another, co-originating one another in joyful mutuality.”

This, then, leads to the central theme of the book: “We, being made in the image of God, are made to dance—with God, with one another, and with the cosmos.” This theme forms the basis for a worldview that is deeper and wider than most of us have—or have even thought of.

On this basis, Sydnor elucidates an all-inclusive worldview, one based on the perfect, unconditional, and universal love expressed by the Greek word agapé. Thus he asserts, “God is three persons united through agapic love into one nondual community. God is agapic nonduality.”

Sydnor acknowledges that “people want faith to give them more life, and people want faith to make society more just, and people want faith to grant the world more peace.” He then states that he has “written this book in the conviction that Trinitarian, agapic nondualism can do so.”

In his third chapter, Sydnor cites this foundational Bible verse: “There is one God and Creator of all, who is over all, who works through all and is within all” (Ephesians. 4:6, The Inclusive Bible, 2022). All here means, well, all, and that is the basis for Sydnor’s all-inclusive worldview.

Such a perspective is completely based on agape, “the unconditional, universal love of God for all creation.” These words of Sydnor in the first chapter lead to this statement in the ninth chapter: “What would society look like if its members truly trusted God and enacted the divine love? Certainly, it would be universalist.”

So, shall we dance, joining the great open dance of God and adopting a universal, all-inclusive worldview based on agapic nonduality? Sounds good to me.

_____

*¹ I received a free copy of the e-book edition of Sydnor’s book from Mike Morrell and his Speakeasy website which provides “quality books in exchange for candid reviews.” This post is in partial fulfillment of that promise, but I am also publishing a review of the book on another blogsite (see here).

*² As indicated on the cover of Rohr’s book, it was written “with Mike Morrell.”

*³ Funi is the Japanese translation of the Sanskrit words advaita in Hinduism and advaya in Buddhism. Sydnor is also the co-editor of (the very expensive) book, Nondualism: An Interreligious Exploration (2023) and the founding director of The Nondualism Project (click here to access their attractive website).

“I Was Hungry . . .”: Observing Hunger Action Month

This article is directly related to the one posted on August 30 where I cited the words of Jesus found in Matthew 25:40. In verse 35 of the same chapter, Jesus said, “I was hungry, and you fed me.”  

September is widely known as Hunger Action Month in the U.S. This is an important emphasis that has often not been sufficiently observed. Hunger is a grave problem even here in the U.S., one of the richest nations in the world.  

Feeding America is the name of the organization that is the primary advocate of Hunger Alert Month. On their website (here), they state that more than 47 million people in the U.S. face hunger, including one in five children.  

I live in Missouri, which has a population of about 6.2 million people. It’s hard for me to fathom the fact that every person in more than seven states the size of Missouri is facing food insecurity. 

Fortunately, many of those people can get help from the numerous affiliates of Feeding America. Locally, Harvesters is the Feeding America food bank serving a 26-county area of northwestern Missouri and northeastern Kansas (see here).  

As Harvesters provides food and related household products to more than 760 nonprofit agencies including food pantries, community kitchens, shelters, and other similar facilities, I was happy to make a contribution to that organization as one of my hunger actions for this month.  

There are similar food banks across the U.S. A couple of weeks ago I created a “Google alert” for Hunger Action Month, and I have been notified about magazine and newspaper articles from all across the country, including one last week from Bolivar Herald Free-Press telling about Ozark Food Harvest.* 

Do you who live in the U.S. know the organization related to Feeding America near you? Is there some action—a contribution or maybe volunteer work—you can do during this Hunger Action month? 

Hunger, of course, is a global problem, and the World Food Program (WFP) is an international organization within the United Nations that provides food assistance worldwide. Founded in 1961, WFP is headquartered in Rome and has offices in 80 countries. (WFP’s website can be accessed here.) 

According to an Aug. 2 WFP article, 309 million people in 71 countries now face acute hunger. Of these, more than 37 million people face emergency levels of hunger or worse: there are 1.3 million people in the grips of catastrophic hunger, primarily in Gaza and Sudan.  

Cindy (Hensley) McCain became the executive director of the WFP last year, and as such she is the head of what is said to be the world’s largest humanitarian organization.**  

Feeding the hungry is good, but seeking to prevent hunger is better. We must ask why there are so many hungry people in the world, realizing that charity is good, but it is not enough. 

In my next blog post, I am planning to introduce a 2024 book by Jon Paul Sydnor, a college professor in Boston, but here are pertinent words from that book I am sharing now: 

... charity will always be necessary, but it must be practiced alongside social criticism. Charity must ask, “Why is this charity needed? Instead of feeding the hungry, could we eliminate hunger?” (The Great Open Dance, p. 284). 

Reading those words caused me to remember the words of Dom Helder Camara (1909~99) that I have cited before:  

And here is the distressing state of affairs in the world today: the global hunger problem is most likely going to become increasingly worse. Global warming, leading to more droughts as well as to more floods, will likely cause food shortages and acute hunger for many people in some parts of the world. 

Still, while being concerned about the causes of hunger and the dire prospects for the future, some chronically hungry people need help now. Let’s do something to help such individuals, knowing that when we help feed hungry people, we are figuratively feeding Jesus. 

_____ 

* The Free Press is the weekly newspaper of Bolivar, Mo., the town where June and I met as first-year students at Southwest Baptist College (as it was then, in 1955). Ozarks Food Harvest, located in Springfield, is the Feeding America food bank for southwest Missouri. It serves 270 hunger relief organizations across 28 Ozarks counties. 

** McCain (b. 1954), the widow of Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), served as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture from 2021 to 2023.  

Note: Some of you may want to go back and read blog posts I made ten/eleven years ago regarding the topic of hunger. See “Charity is Not Enough” (about Bread for the World and posted on 6/10/14), and “Food for the Hungry” (posted on 7/30/13).