A Modern Man of Great Faith and Integrity | Eastern North Carolina Now

    I am from Georgia and knew Jimmy Carter when he was Governor. He changed little upon moving to become President of this great nation. Outside of President Obama, he had the most uncooperative Congress with which to contend.

    I shall never forget a central point of his Inaugural Address: "Americans want a nation as good as they are!" He got out of the limousine and walked Pennsylvania Avenue as a sign of his being "of the people." He refused to go to war in the Middle East when the Oil Cartel put the screws to us with an embargo. Stupid Americans could not see we brought it on ourselves by becoming too dependent on foreign oil.

    Carter has continued to write as he grows older. Each publican shows more insight into the real nature of this world than the one before. At age 90, he is getting to his end:

    The newswoman asked him an important question and here is his answer:

    "Does the arc of history bend toward justice?"

    "I'm not sure about that," said Carter, who has spent the last 35 years advocating for peace. "I think we reached the high point, in the practical aspects of justice for most people on earth, when we passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. After World War II, about 1948, every country committed themselves to permanent peace with the establishment of the United Nations and then the Universal Human Rights declaration. I think we've gone downhill in many ways since that time."

    The reporter begins to summarize and I would hope some would get his books of recent venue:

    "Carter has clarified his positions before, in more than two dozen books that include memoirs of his presidency, the controversial 2006 book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid and, most recently, 2014's A Call to Action about the rights of women. In A Full Life, in addition to providing a sweeping overview of a broad range of issues and frequent credit to his wife Rosalynn, he remembers his pre-political past, including surprisingly detailed stories about tilling a field with a mule at the family farm in Plains, Ga., and an incident when, as a sailor, he was swept off the deck of a submarine near South Korea and almost carried off to sea.

    At the heart of the book is a message that Carter has carried through his political life: "My hope is that our leaders will capitalize on our country's most admirable qualities," he writes. His version of those qualities, deeply informed by his Christian faith, seems far from our current foreign policy. "We need to be a Superpower as a champion of peace, not war; we need to be a Superpower in being a champion of basic human rights, although we're now violating a good many of the basic principles of human rights," he says. "We need to be the most generous country in the world; the most dedicated to the essence of democracy and freedom."

    You may or may not like President Carter. I met them both when he was dedicating the new Divinity School building and chapel. He is an Adjunct Professor at Emory today. His Carter Center is a few miles from the Emory Campus.

    Conservatism certainly hates him. Ronald Reagan had back door communications with Iraq as he ran for re-election against him. Reagan assured the Ayatollah they would get a better deal if they kept the hostages, therefore making it far more difficult for Carter to win. Had Carter's ordered Rescue Mission succeeded, he would have been "instant hero." The hardship it put on his political career has kept any President since form making hasty plans for rescue of hostages. It was a lesson in "mission fail and you go down" politics. Better to send massive troops and bomb than to take a risk that a failed covert mission could blemish your stay in the White House.

    The continuous hate of the Middle East has been a problem before Jesus came, during his sojourn, and right up until today. Part of the reason Jesus was killed had to do with "FORGIVING YOUR ENEMIES." Jewish law is based on "lex talionis." That is Latin for 'eye for eye / tooth for tooth.' If a man blinds you, you have the legal right to blind him back. Jesus was advocating that the end result is 2 blind men full of hate

    ONLY AN ACT OF FORGIVENESS short-circuits hate. "Love and forgive your enemy" was Jesus' admonition.

    The theme of this entire series is HOW CAN WE LEARN TO GET ALONG?

    In my mind, the crowing accomplishment of the Carter Administration was the Camp David Accords. He accomplished the impossible to get Began and Sadat together at the Presidential Retreat. The hate between Israel and Egypt is a continued story since Moses led them to the Promised Land. A small nation of former slaves seemed never to get along with one another, much less their former masters. It has clear relationship to the current black/white rift in America. We thought we solved the issues in the 50-60 decade+. Now it is back stronger than ever as the Confederate Battle Flag is an object of contention.

    Part of the Nazi extermination of Jews had to do with white skin vs. dark. The imagined purity of Aryan Supremacy is smack in the middle of KKK hate and fear. This week the Smithsonian Channel did a reprise of the Civil War. Again, fear of slave insurrection was a big part of the problem between North and South

    even though a small minority of southerners were slave owners. You can debate this, that, or the other cause of the most destructive war in American history, but the central fact remains: A HATE OF FREEDOM FOR ALL has been part of the American cloak ever since 1776.

    We dream one thing --- and then live another!

    The longer term result of the Camp David Accords was that BOTH men who signed it were cut down by their own people --- still loving war and hate. Only a man of serious Christian convictions would ever have attempted it in the first place. The Crusades are far from over as Christians hate Muslims and we are in the same cycle of war we can't seem to exit.

    America is being criticized internally for "deserting Israel." What most people do not see is that current Israel is far more political than religious---and has most always been thus.

    Let me end with a quick story of Jew vs. Arab told me years ago by Nido Qubein, whose youth church work ideas I found most helpful in my first years of professional ministry. I was in attendance at his conference in Greensboro. We had a time to talk privately. He shared the story of why he was in Greensboro now instead of back home in Israel.

    His family had lived in the same house for generations. They were Arabs in Israel. One night a knock came in the early morning hours. There stood a dozen or so armed Israeli Soldiers ordering them to leave their house or be shot on the spot. "Leave all your possessions since we now own this house and have no intention of buying it from you. YOU MUST LEAVE OR DIE TONIGHT!"

    HERE ARE THE QUESTIONS:

        •  If you were the one dispossessed, would you love Israel?

        •  Is it possible to follow the guidance of Christ to "love and forgive your enemy?"

        •  What is the alternative to a nuclear end of mankind?

        •  Why does a powerful nation like America fear any tribal desert dweller in the Middle East?