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. 

 

In Praise of Koinonia Farm

On the day after his 100^th birthday anniversary, on 7/30/12 I posted a blog article titled "In Praise of Clarence Jordan.” This article is about Jordan’s Koinonia Farm which is celebrating its 80^th anniversary tomorrow (on 11/26), and I am posting it in deep appreciation for their decades of faithful work. 

Clarence Jordan was a farmer with a Ph.D. in theology. Born in 1912 in the small town of Talbotton, Georgia, about 90 miles south of Atlanta, Jordan graduated with a degree in agriculture at the University of Georgia in 1933. The following year, he was ordained as a Southern Baptist minister.

Then, in 1938 Jordan earned a Ph.D. in Greek New Testament from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky, and four years later he started Koinonia Farm near Americus, Georgia, about 65 miles south of where he was born.

Clarence Jordan sought to be a “demonstration plot” farmer. An article in the December Sojourners magazine is titled “The Radical Southern Farmer White Christians Should Know About.” In that piece, Jordan is cited as saying,

While I love books and have a passion for knowledge, I have thought the real laboratory for learning was not the classroom but in the fields, by farming, and in interaction with human need.

So, the 440-acre Koinonia Farm, named after the Greek word for fellowship and joint participation, was designed to be a “demonstration plot” of the Kingdom of God in the here and now of southern Georgia.

According to the Sojourners article, Jordan conceived of the farm as being

cooperative and communal ... interracial, controlled by investment of time (life), rather than capital; based on the principle of distribution according to need; [and] motivated by Christian love as the most powerful instrument known to [people] for solving [their] problems.

Clarence Jordan has recently been hailed as the preacher of “the inconvenient Gospel.” Just last month a book containing some of Jordan’s writings and sermons was published under the title The Inconvenient Gospel: A Southern Prophet Tackles War, Wealth, Race, and Religion. 

Issued by Plough Publishing House on October 25, I bought a Kindle copy that day and read it before attending (on Zoom) the book launch event sponsored by Plough on Oct. 28.

One of the three panelists on that webinar was Starlette Thomas, a young Black pastor and journalist. Her opening remarks were largely the same as the Introduction that she authored for the book. Starlette’s explanation and praise of Koinonia is also printed in the Autumn 2022 issue of Plough.**

Koinonia Farm has had influence far beyond southern Georgia. In the 1970s not long after Jordan’s death in 1969, Koinonia Farm began to market some of his sermons on long-play vinyl records—and I listened to some of those, with considerable delight, in Japan.

I had heard of Jordan and Koinonia Farm while a seminary student (at Jordan’s alma mater) in the 1960s, but it was after hearing his sermons preached with a captivating southern drawl, that I became a big admirer of Jordan and what he had done in Georgia.

The influence of Jordan and Koinonia Farm expanded beyond Georgia in other, more important ways. Millard Fuller (1935~2009) was a self-made millionaire by age 29, but he gave up his wealth and moved to Koinonia Farm in 1968, where he and his family lived for five years.

Under the name Koinonia Partners, Fuller started Habitat for Humanity in 1976, and in 1984 he enlisted Jimmy Carter as a hands-on supporter—and Jimmy and Rosalynn continued to do volunteer work with Habitat into their 90s. (The Carter home in Plains was about ten miles from Koinonia Farm.)

The number of people currently living at Koinonia Farm (see their website here) is small, but they are valiantly working to keep alive Clarence Jordan’s vision of maintaining a demonstration plot for the Kingdom of God. For that, I remain deeply grateful.

And in reflecting upon Koinonia Farm’s existence for 80 years now, I am challenged to think about how June and I, and our church, can be more intentionally a part of a demonstration plot for God’s Kin-dom.

_____

** Starlette’s article is titled “The Raceless Gospel,” a concept she constantly emphasizes. She is director of The Raceless Gospel Initiative at Good Faith Ministries and host of the Raceless Gospel podcasts.

Note: In addition to the new book about Jordan issued last month, I highly recommend Dallas M. Lee’s excellent book, The Cotton Patch Evidence: The Story of Clarence Jordan and the Koinonia Farm Experiment (1942–1970), first published in 1971 (3^rd ed., 2011).

Did Jimmy Carter Lose His Religion?

As was widely reported in the news media, on October 1 Jimmy Carter celebrated his 95th birthday, becoming the first U.S. President to reach that age. But has Jimmy lost his religion? In the last few months, I have repeatedly seen Facebook friends post the link to Carter’s article titled “Losing My Religion for Equality.” 

Jimmy’s Article

The linked-to piece with that title was, in fact, published on July 15, 2009, under Carter’s name by The Age, a daily newspaper that had been published in Melbourne, Australia, since 1854—and that article is still available online.

In April 2015, The Age reported that Jimmy’s article has been the highest rated story ever published on theage.com.au, having been viewed more than 1.9 million times—and it has been viewed many more times since then.

The Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation even published Carter’s article on their website in April 2017, erroneously indicating that it was a newly published piece.

Carter’s article has been viewed so many times on the Internet this year that in July Snopes.com reported on its veracity. Snopes correctly explained that even though “the letter is often shared along with the claim that Carter renounced his faith,” that “isn’t the case.”

Snopes continues, “While Carter rejected the notion that women were subservient and severed ties with the Southern Baptist Convention [SBC], he never turned his back on his own religion.” And he certainly didn’t lose his faith in God.

Accordingly, I think that surely the title of Jimmy’s article was written by the newspaper, not by him.

Jimmy’s Point

Back in 2000 Carter severed ties with the SBC—a matter that was widely reported (such as in the Oct. 21, 2000, article in the WaPo.) Nine years later in his article published in The Age, he said that severing those ties “was painful and difficult.”

In January 2008, I talked briefly with Jimmy at the New Baptist Covenant meeting in Atlanta—and I gave him a copy of my recently published book Fed Up with Fundamentalism. As introduced in my 9/25 blog posting, the eighth chapter dealt with the issue that he wrote about in his 2009 article.

(I would like to think that that chapter in my book was of help to him.)

Thus, I fully agree with him and the main point he made in The Age article: “Women and girls have been discriminated against for too long in a twisted interpretation of the word of God.”

Carter later wrote a whole book about this matter: A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power (2014). The third chapter of that important book is “The Bible and Gender Equality,” and he explains his disagreement with the SBC—as well as his ongoing Christian faith.

Jimmy’s Reputation

Among most of us moderate/progressive Christians, Jimmy Carter is held in high regard. And even if some of us may think that he was not a great President, almost everyone agrees that he is the best ex-President the country has ever had.

I have been somewhat amazed, though, at how he is still criticized by conservative evangelical Christians (among others on the right, I assume). I sometimes see “friends” of my Facebook friends saying very negative things about Jimmy.

The two most cited reasons for criticism of Carter are his position on LGBTQ rights and his position on Israel. For those reasons, and perhaps others, his reputation among the Religious Right is not good—but for most of the rest of us, it is stellar.

Five years ago I posted a blog article wishing Jimmy a happy 90th birthday, and I am very glad that I can wish him a (belated) Happy Birthday again now. 

Is It Anti-Semitic to Criticize Israel?

Anti-Semitism has a long and sordid existence in world history. As is the case with all discriminatory language and actions, antisemitism cannot be condoned no matter when or by whom it is expressed. But neither can charges of antisemitism be used as a means to stifle legitimate criticism of the nation of Israel.

The Recent Ruckus
As has been widely covered in the news media over the past few weeks, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has been accused of making anti-Semitic remarks that have upset many Congresspeople, among others, including some Democrats.
Some, though, understand Rep. Omar's voicing criticism of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and as not being antisemitic at all.
According to Merriam-Webster, “antisemitic” means “hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group.” There was nothing in Rep. Omar’s statements about the Jews. She spoke only with reference to the nation of Israel and its supporters.
(Of course, it clouds the picture that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has recently publicly stated that Israel “is the national state, not of all its citizens, but only of the Jewish people”—in spite of the fact that about 20% of the population are Arabs.)
Pro-Palestinian Pronouncements
President Jimmy Carter had considerable experience in matters directly connected to the Middle East. He made a vital contribution to implementing the 1978 Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt—which resulted in Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt being awarded the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize.
More than 25 years later, Carter wrote a highly controversial book: Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (2006). Carter and his pro-Palestine stance were castigated not only by many Jewish people but also by some Democrats (such as Nancy Pelosi) who were/are not Jews—and by many conservative Christians.
June and I read Carter’s book in 2007 and were convinced that his criticism of Israel was correct—but certainly not anti-Semitic.
A much-maligned Jewish group goes by the name Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). The JVP, founded in 1996, has, along with some other Jewish groups and many individual Jews, publicly voiced strong support for Rep. Omar.
JVP’s mission statement (see here) clearly states that JVP members “are inspired by Jewish tradition to work together for peace, social justice, equality, human rights, respect for international law, and a U.S. foreign policy based on these ideals.” 

What about BDS?
As perhaps most of you know, a movement known as BDS (boycott, divest, sanction) is a strong opponent of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people. I first heard about BDS in 2015 when I was in Israel.
I ended my 6/30/15 blog article, “The Plight of the Palestinians,” with a positive introduction to BDS. I was disappointed, but not particularly surprised, when I was reprimanded by a local Jewish rabbi whom I considered my friend.
Rep. Omar (b. 1981) has said that her grandfather taught her about the history of racial oppression in South Africa. Consequently, she has compared Israel to an “apartheid regime”—which is what Carter did, in effect, in his 2006 book.
In a 2017 speech, Rep. Omar said she remembered her grandfather talking about apartheid in South Africa and how some people “decided that they were going to engage in boycotts of that government.”
And, as we know, by 1994 apartheid had ended in South Africa.
It seems to me that the BDS movement was organized for the same sort of purpose as the anti-apartheid activities in opposition to South Africa’s policies.
So, I am not critical of Israel and in favor of the BDS movement because I have negative, prejudicial attitudes toward Jewish people. My criticism of Israel is because of that nation’s ongoing and patently unjust treatment of Palestinians.
[Addendum: On March 17, 2019, an op-ed piece by Rep. Omar was posted on The Washington Post’s website; her clarifying earlier statements as well as emphasizing the imperative for peace and justice in Israel/Palestine are most commendable.]
x

What is Fundamentalism? (Redux)

As I indicated last month (here), this year I am planning to update my book Fed Up with Fundamentalism (2007) and to re-publish it at year’s end. In that connection, here are highlights from the (slightly) updated first chapter.

Beginnings of Christian Fundamentalism

In the first main section of the chapter, I explain that fundamentalism was originally “a sincere movement to preserve or to restore the true faith.” That is, it was not militant—and it certainly was not political as the Christian Right has been in recent years.

Even though there were some precursors, the actual beginning of what came to be called fundamentalism was the publishing of twelve small books between 1910 and 1915. The overarching title of the twelve volumes was The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth.

In June 1920, the Northern Baptist Convention held a conference on “The Fundamentals of Our Baptist Faith” in Buffalo, New York. Writing about that conference in the Baptist publication The Watchman-Examiner, C.L. Laws, the editor, proposed that those “who mean to do battle royal for the fundamentals shall be called ‘Fundamentalists.’”

Laws’s proposed term seems to be the first public use of the word “fundamentalist.”

Changes in Christian Fundamentalism

During its first 25 years, from 1915 to 1940, there was a considerable shift from being the kind of “mainstream” movement it was in the beginning to being a separatist and a more militant movement.

The Scopes Trial of 1925 marked a definitive change in attitudes toward fundamentalism—thanks mainly to the daily newspaper reports written by reporter H.L. Mencken of the Baltimore Sun. By the end of that “trial of the century,” for most in the general public, and for many even in the churches, fundamentalism was largely discredited. 

The picture is a scene from "Inherit the Wind," a movie about the Scopes Trial.

For the next several decades, then, fundamentalism was “alive and well” only among the militant “biblical separatists.” Four of the most influential proponents of this new type of fundamentalism were J. Frank Norris, J. Gresham Machen (to whom I referred in a recent blog article), Bob Jones, and John R. Rice.

Of these four, Norris (1877~1952) was the most colorful—and the best example of militant fundamentalism. Barry Hankins of Baylor University published his biography of Norris under the title God’s Rascal.

Hankins writes, “While some became militant because they were fundamentalists, Norris became a fundamentalist, in part at least, because he was militant by nature” (p. 176).

Earlier in his book, Hankins states: “Militancy was the indispensable characteristic of fundamentalism—the one that distinguished fundamentalists from other conservative evangelicals” (p. 44).

In this regard, it is important to remember the words spoken before 1925 by the early anti-fundamentalist leader Harry Emerson Fosdick: “All Fundamentalists are conservatives, but not all conservatives are Fundamentalists.”

Shifts in Terms for Fundamentalism

Because of the negative connotations of the term fundamentalism, in the 1940s under the leadership of Carl F.H. Henry, among others, a group of “moderate fundamentalists” formed the National Association of Evangelicals and the movement came to be known by the name “neo-evangelicalism” instead of fundamentalism.

Gradually, the “neo-“ part of the new term was dropped, and conservative Christianity came to be known as just evangelicalism. Still, there were differences in their ranks: there were those who were more progressive, such as people like Jimmy Carter. Time magazine declared 1976, the year Carter was elected President, as the “year of the evangelical.”

Unlike the more progressive evangelicals such as Carter, there were still many conservatives who formed a large part of that wing of the church—and so it remains today. Accordingly, “conservative evangelical” is now largely a synonym for “fundamentalist.”

Do More Prayers Make a Difference—to God?

Jimmy Carter’s grandson spoke briefly at the Democratic National Convention on July 26. Among other things, he said that “thanks to the miracles of modern science and the power of prayer” his grandfather is now free of cancer.

As an admirer of Jimmy Carter, at least most of the time, I was saddened last year when I heard that he had cancer—and happy to hear fairly recently that he now claims to be cancer-free.

But was it the power of prayer that caused that happy change?

There were certainly a lot of people who prayed for President Carter after hearing about his cancer. In April of this year, a webpage of the American Baptist Home Mission Society was titled, “Calling for prayers of healing for former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.”

That is just one example of numerous calls for prayer for Carter, who has been much more popular as an ex-President than he was while in the Oval Office.

This raises some interesting questions about prayer, however. Would God not have taken Carter’s cancer away if fewer people had prayed? If so, how many fewer? Was there a tipping point? Why? Does God decide whether to heal any given individual based on the number of prayers received?

Four years ago on August 15 my blog article (see here) was about intercessory prayer, and I raised some of these same questions. Because the situation hasn’t changed in these four years, allow me to repeat two paragraphs from that article.

The theological question, you see, is this: why would the all-loving God change things or do things differently, or better, because of prayer—and even be more likely to do so if there were a lot of prayers or a lot of people praying.

Jesus spoke disparagingly about those who think that they will be heard because of their many words (Matthew 6:7). Didn’t he likely think the same thing about those who believe that God will give special consideration to the words of many people?

Or, is prayer just the sending of “good vibes” out into the world that, literally, change things if there are enough such vibes for a specific purpose? Possibly, I guess—but I seriously doubt it.

I have long contended that prayer primarily changes the one who prays, not the One prayed to. Prayer has often changed me—but has it ever changed God? Probably not. 

So, was there any benefit for so many people praying for President Carter? Probably so—but not because those prayers changed God.

If praying for Carter caused some people to think about the yeoman’s work he has done through the years with Habitat for Humanity and to recognize the ongoing need for providing more and better housing for poor people across the country, those prayers were beneficial.

If praying for Carter caused others to recall his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (2006) and to become more concerned about the plight of the Palestinians, those prayers were beneficial.

If praying for Carter caused still other people to reflect upon the problem of racism in the country and that in Atlanta next month he will be the convener and one of the keynote speakers of the New Baptist Covenant meeting using the slogan “Baptists Working Together for Racial Justice and Reconciliation,” those prayers were beneficial.

But I can’t imagine God saying to the angels (or whomever) at some point earlier this year, You know, if enough people pray for Jimmy, I will just take the old guy’s cancer away.

Happy 90th Birthday, Jimmy!

The 39th President of the United States was born on October 1, 1924, so tomorrow is Jimmy Carter’s 90th birthday.

In spite of the many difficulties and widespread criticism during his presidency, he is the best ex-president the U.S. has ever had in terms of public service and contributions to world peace and justice.

It was fitting that he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. And it is fitting that we, too, celebrate his birthday.

Carter was a one-term president, embarrassingly defeated by Ronald Reagan in 1980.

His defeat was due to many factors, such as rampant inflation that caused grave financial problems in the country, 53 Americans taken hostage in Iran and held for more than a year, and loss of support by the Religious Right.

Still, the Camp David Accords, a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, in September 1978 were a tremendous accomplishment.

Egyptian President Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Begin won the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize for those accords, but the agreement came about only because of Carter's indefatigable efforts.

It can be argued, though, that the biggest mistake Carter made while in the White House was his support of the Shah of Iran.

On New Year’s Eve in 1977, President Carter toasted the Shah at a state dinner in Tehran, calling him "an island of stability" in the troubled Middle East.

Just over one year later, the Shah fled his country because of the Iranian Revolution, and in February 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini returned after 14 years in exile.

Then, in November 1979, students in the Iranian Revolution overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took 53 hostages who were not released until the minute after President Reagan was inaugurated in 1981.

The Iranians didn’t forget Carter’s support of the Shah.

Since his presidency, Carter has authored numerous books. One of his most important, and most criticized, is “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” (2007).

Many strong supporters of Israel have been quite critical of that book. But in it Carter quite convincingly argues that the Palestinians have been mistreated greatly over the past 60 years.

It is a book that still needs to be widely read and seriously considered.

The documentary film “Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains” (2007) is mostly about Carter’s book tour following the publication of “Palestine” and about the controversy surrounding it.

Carter’s latest book, published earlier this year, is “A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power.” He writes in the introduction that “the most serious and unaddressed worldwide challenge is the deprivation and abuse of women and girls.”

Carter’s commitment to human rights and justice was a highly commendable aspect of his presidency, and he has continued that emphasis in all these years since he left office more than three decades ago.

The third chapter in Carter’s new book is “The Bible and Gender Equality.” It is a strong statement about how the Bible, rightly interpreted, supports the equality of men and women.

He also explains in this chapter how that issue is one of the main reasons he left the Southern Baptist Convention.

In most ways, Jimmy Carter is a rather “common” man. But he has had a remarkable life and has made great contributions to the world, both as the President of the United States and as a very active ex-president.

So regardless of your political position and your evaluation of Carter’s presidency, please join me in exclaiming, “Happy 90th Birthday, Jimmy!”

“The Eighth Wonder of the World”

Today is the 100^th anniversary of the official opening of the Panama Canal on August 15, 1914. Today is also my birthday, and I am celebrating it in Panama.

I arrived in Panama City late Wednesday and spent an enjoyable day yesterday in this vibrant city.

Today I will see some of the Canal, “one of the supreme human achievements of all time” (David McCullough) and “a miracle of engineering and industrial technology” (Julie Greene).

It has been lauded with many other superlatives; a 1998 TV movie was titled “Panama Canal: The Eighth Wonder of the World.” (Several other things have also been called the “eighth wonder.”)

Building a waterway across Central America, joining the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, was a dream of some for hundreds of years. The first major attempt was by the French in the 1880s. But they failed miserably.

Then, President Theodore Roosevelt tackled the enormous task of achieving that goal. It was a daunting challenge. First, the rights to begin the project had to be obtained.

When negotiations with Columbia, of which Panama was a part, failed, the U.S. helped Panama gain independence in 1903. In November of that year, the Panama Canal Zone was formed as a U.S. territory.

The following year, the U.S. began digging the canal. Ten years later they completed that gigantic task—but at great cost.

The financial cost was quite low by current standards: only $375 million. (Of course, that would be around $10 billion today.) The greatest cost, however, was in human lives.

Including the tragic efforts of the French, the project cost around 500 lives a mile to build the 50-mile waterway.

Two of the best books about that costly project are The Path Between the Seas (1977) by David McCullough and The Canal Builders (2009) by Julie Greene.

Last week June and I watched the PBS “American Experience” movie “Panama Canal” (2011). That excellent film and much other related information can be found online here.

Julie Greene (b. 1956), a history professor at the University of Maryland, links the construction of the Canal to the efforts of the U.S. to extend the concept of manifest destiny beyond the national borders.

Greene also links the Canal to the extension of the USAmerican “empire” that began with the Spanish-American War in 1898. That “empire” was extended with the formation of the 10-mile wide Panama Canal Zone (PCZ) in 1903

Construction of the “Big Ditch” was another clear indication of American exceptionalism. Accordingly, there was considerable opposition by conservatives, and especially by the John Birch Society, when President Carter began talking about turning over the Canal to Panama.

Carter, however, signed the treaties in 1977 that terminated the PCZ on Oct. 1, 1979. (That is one of several reasons Carter lost the 1980 presidential election.) The Canal was fully turned over to Panama on the first day of 2000.

According to history professor Laura Kalman, “To the New Right nothing illustrated Carter’s ‘softness’ more than his willingness to ‘surrender’ the Panama Canal” (Right Star Rising, p. 265).

But the Canal continues to operate for the benefit of the U.S. and for all the major maritime nations. And now ambitious enlargement construction is going on. Its completion is scheduled for next year.

Also called the “Third Set of Locks Project,” this ambition expansion project being done entirely by the Republic of Panama is intended to double the capacity of the Canal.

How exciting to be here today on my birthday, joining in the celebration of the 100^th birthday of “the eighth wonder of the world”!

Later on 8/15

This morning I enjoyed seeing ships going through the second lock on the way north from the Pacific Ocean. Here is a picture of a large ship just starting through the lock. In the top middle of the building you can see the centennial logo that I used with this article.