Carter Still Standing Against Injustice

Former president Jimmy Carter may well go down as having the most accomplished post presidency in history, his commitment to human rights is unparalleled.

Carter recently added to this already distinguished legacy by making a difficult personal decision.

After more than 60 years, Carter broke the sociological and theological ties he formed with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).

The Nobel Prize winning former president recently wrote, "Faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world. So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult."

The cause for this irreconcilable difference was the failure of SBC to recognize women as equal with their male counterparts.

SBC's official statement on women reads:

Women participate equally with men in the priesthood of all believers. Their role is crucial, their wisdom, grace and commitment exemplary. Women are an integral part of Southern Baptist boards, faculties, mission teams, writer pools, and professional staffs. The role of pastor, however, is specifically reserved for men.

This led Carter to write:

It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention's leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.

Carter adds:

At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.

SBC is the largest Baptist denomination, with more than 16 million members, and probably its most conservative. It's origin as a stand-alone denomination dates back to 1845, when it split with northern Baptist over slavery.

In 1995, SBC voted to adopt a resolution renouncing its racist origins, formally apologizing for its past defense of the institution of slavery.

Carter is not the first high profile elected official to leave SBC. Former president Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore have also left, citing disagreements with a number of SBC positions.

SBC is hardly alone. Many churches, along with organizations outside of religious circles either overtly or covertly struggle with gender equality. Lest we forget, the 19th Amendment, which guaranteed women the right to vote was ratified in 1920.

With few exceptions, the American church has traditionally been slow to adapt to change.

It was moderate white clergy and not conservative pastors from SBC affiliated churches that called Martin Luther King's nonviolent tactics in Birmingham, "extreme" in a full-page ad in 1963, which provoked King to write his famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail."

The legacy of the historical black church standing at the vanguard of the Civil Rights Movement has more to do with the few than it does the masses. In 1963, when King led Project "C" in Birmingham of the 500 black churches in the city, less than 20 actively participated.

Moreover, a number of historical black churches still struggle with gender equality today.

In an ironic twist, First Baptist Church of Decatur, GA, a 2,700-member Southern Baptist church called Julie Pennington-Russell to become its senior pastor last month -- the first woman to lead a SBC church.

Whether this signals a philosophical change within SBC or Carter's resignation will lead a mass exodus from the denomination, though both are unlikely, misses the point.

If those of us who are not members of SBC, or affiliated with any religious institution, look at this with an elitist eye that narrows Carter's decision to one that holds only internal ramifications we might overlook the injustice that occurs in the organizations with which we do associate.

I applaud the former president for his progressive stand. Carter had to fight 60 years of familiarity and comfort to see an injustice he could no longer tolerate. That is indeed a lesson we can all embrace.

Byron Williams is an Oakland pastor and syndicated columnist and blog-talk radio host. He is the author of Strip Mall Patriotism: Moral Reflections of the Iraq War. E-mail him at [e-mail] or visit his Web site: byronspeaks.com.

Follow Byron Williams on Twitter: www.twitter.com/byronspeaks

Comments

[medicare4all]

Jimmy Carter has led on middle east peace, energy self-sufficiency (before it was fashionable), and now women's equality. I applaud this move away from the narrowmindedness of his church. This will lead younger followers to question the teachings and authority of the church. The theft of President Carter's re-election by the dubious tactics of the Reagan camp has led us to the deplorable situation we are in today. "Reaganomics" has been an abomination.

[emerywood]

We need men like President Carter who always speaks the truth and is very fair-minded.
Those who attacked him only showed how ugly and sinister they really are.

[GrainOSand]

President Carter is simply -- a shining example.

As some have chosen to point out, there is a cautionary tale for the current president in the obstacles and choices faced by Mr. Carter when he was president. You only have but so much time in power, waste it not on less than bold approaches in addressing longstanding problems, otherwise your true greatness may not come to the fore until after you leave office, this based in no small part on the rabid nature of the disloyal (to country and even to themselves as reflected in manipulation via misinformative wedge issue) and sometimes immoral opposition. Combine that with a fickle impatient and fed up populace and time clearly becomes something that is “of the essence”.

Citizen Carter, given another chance at being President Carter, would be very different from 1970s President Carter -- at least where it concerns approach to energy, the economy, and overall domestic agenda. Of course he is afforded retrospect and growth over the years, and is that not the point. The learning curve and the courage curve is indeed steep for presidents and citizens. Decrease the slope -- increase the fire -- in the belly, to deliver meaningful transformation to a nation caught in the crosswinds at the crossroads of a new, hopeful and promising beginning, or the beginning of the end...countdown to meltdown and decay.

Let us pray that things do not trend the latter way.

[elsie900]

Reverend Williams,

thank you for this thoughtful article and for bringing up all the issues Mr. Carter's departure raises. It is still so rare to hear men quietly supporting the dignity of women that both he and you gained my attention simply by making sincere, well-thought-out comments.

As one who grew up in the SBC I am dismayed not only by their long-term history and the length of time it took them to apologize for supporting slavery, but also by the more recent turn to the right that they took under the leadership of people like Richard Land. My great-grandmother and grandmother were pillars of the church and outspoken feminists - which to them was part of fulfilling the potential that God gave them. They would not have thrived in the same way in today's SBC, and I feel I can never go back.

It is tragic that for the entire duration of its existence, the SBC has defined itself by political goals rather than spiritual ones. A church that is born from the wish to subjugate a race and goes on to focus on subjugating women and oppressing sexual minorities is one which has sacrificed its mission to bring the light of Christ to the world.

By the way, I had thought that Jimmy Carter left the SBC for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship some years ago. I hope more information is available about this new step and what led up to it.

[Dailyfare]

President Carter is one of the few people, esp. politicians, in public life that actually walks the walk instead of just talking the talk.

For my money, that makes him one of our greatest presidents.

[FWDpost]

The phrase is "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," not "whine, malign and redefine your presidency."
Mr. Carter empowered Iran, spit on Israel, and initiated the deregulation of corporations. He wears his religion on his sleeve like a sleazy Jimmy Haggard - and gosh, they were both on Oprah, just not together.

[PaxMundis]

Yeah, he really spit on Israel by giving it its only lasting peace with one of its neighbours.

[CyrusBeaucephus]

stuff a sock in your puppet hole

[Kenpasadena]

I think Obama should take heart in the story of the man from Plains. You can screw up your presidency and the nation and still be redeemed after you leave office.

[nessasarah]

Thank you President Carter for being there for all Man and women kind

[lilbro]

Thank you President Carter for your generous and positive contributions to man and womankind

[oldtree]

The greatest of all our presidents is easy to confer on Jimmy. He cared and tried to act to save our country. He was ridiculed.
Jimmy Carter acts as though religion matters. But in reality, it is his love of people that should be the topic. Not the dealings with the absurdity of religion. He speaks against religious persecution and hypocrisy. Let's stop calling it religious and call it humanitarian, shall we?

[chaya]

The SBC was born in hatred. They may have renounced their origins in racism, but they continue to breathe, eat, and drink hatred as their means of existence. Can't hate blacks? Hate gays.

[emncaity]

Way, way too dismissive, summative, and extreme. About as prejudiced as anything from the nutbag right. The SBC is wrong in what it's doing on this point, as it has been on other points, but to dismiss the whole organization as "breathing, eating, and drinking hatred as their means of existence" is completely unsupportable.

[MBryant]

Jimmy Carter is one of the truly great Americans and a personal hero. I worked for his presidential campaign in 1976 and that experience and his nobility are perhaps the only thing that keep me engaged in a process which often seems hopeless. He continues to be both a statesman and an inspiration and although he remains a proud American, his compassion and leadership knows no boundaries.

In fact, I believe Carter and his Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains left the SBC back in 2000 over this issue. Many moderate bapbist churches in the South have left the SBC over the last decade.

[jmpurser]

I think President Carter was the last decent man we've had in the White House.

[Tim4Equality]

Jimmy Carter has always been one of my political heroes. The only disappointment I have had with him his when he did not stand up for the voters of Florida and Michigan in the last general election primary. I thought - he travels around the world trying to ensure fair elections around the world but doesn't seem to care about the rights of voters in his own back yard. Having said that I respect him enough that I would listen to his explanation of this contradiction with an open mind. Now to the topic of the SBC and equality...yeah Jimmy Carter!

[TLV]

I just started Carter's book, One Hour Before Daylight. Great book about his younger years and his family. Carter is and has been one of my heroes for years. No one personifies peace maker, human rights protector, and patriot better than Jimmy Carter.