FFRF Action Fund’s “Secularist of the Week” is President Jimmy Carter for his lifetime dedication to state-church separation.
Carter was a devout evangelical Christian and, earlier in life, a Southern Baptist but was also vastly committed to preserving the separation of state and church. In 1979, when talking to a group of news editors about the Supreme Court ruling against mandatory government-sponsored prayers in public schools in the early 1960s, Carter said, “I think that prayer should be a private matter between a person and God.”
“The government ought to stay out of the prayer business and let it be between a person and God and not let it be part of a school program under any tangible constraints, either a direct order to a child to pray or an embarrassing situation where the child would feel constrained to pray,” Carter continued. He contended that he agreed with the Supreme Court rulings “as a Baptist.” Carter also notably opposed public money for religious schools.
Carter was in office from 1977 to 1981, and many freethinkers of a certain age will remember Carter as perhaps the first president to describe himself as “born again.” Nevertheless, Carter, who taught Sunday school and publicly acknowledged his religious views throughout his entire life, evolved on religion to the point that he considered John Lennon’s song “Imagine” his favorite. A cover was played at his funeral.
In his memoir, “A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety,” Carter discussed describing himself as “born again,” writing: “My religious faith had become a minor issue during the [1976] campaign, when I responded ‘yes’ to a reporter’s question: ‘Are you a born-again Christian?’ Some reporters implied that I was having visions or thought I received daily instructions from heaven. My traditional Baptist belief was that there should be strict separation between church and state. I ended the longstanding practice of inviting Billy Graham and other prominent pastors to have services in the White House, and our family assumed the role of normal worshippers in a church of our choice.”
In a 1997 interview, Carter also expressed his concerns about the blooming allegiance between religious right-wing politics and Christianity.
“There’s no doubt that the Christian right has gone to bed with the more conservative elements of the Republican Party,” Carter said. “And there’s been a melding in their goals when it comes to the separation of church and state.”
Many feminists were aggrieved after Carter as president, in commenting on a Supreme Court decision upholding the Hyde Amendment — which cut off federal funds to cover abortion care for low-income women — callously stated, “Life is unfair.” However, Carter and his wife Rosalynn helped redeem themselves post-presidency when they parted ways with the Southern Baptists in 2000 because of the church’s regressive stance on women’s equality. His 2009 column about why he quit the Southern Baptists for women’s rights, “Losing My Religion for Equality,” went viral. By his later years, Carter was reportedly “happy with the label of ‘progressive evangelical.’”
Carter’s years in office were characterized by elevating human rights in U.S. foreign policy, championing environmental conservation and resisting military conflict. After leaving office, Carter continued his work through The Carter Center, promoting global efforts for peace, democracy and public health. He continually criticized American militarism. FFRF’s Communications Director Amitabh Pal published a remembrance of Carter in The Progressive magazine that covers a 2008 interview with Carter and his post-presidential work as a broker of peace and statesman.
Carter is a prime example of how a devoutly religious person can hold public office without encroaching on state-church separation and our secular democracy. Despite his personal religious beliefs, Carter did not abuse his office to push his religion onto American citizens. His presidency and post-presidential work certainly earns him his “Secularist of the Week” honorific.
FFRF Action Fund is a 501(c)(4) organization that develops and advocates for legislation, regulations and government programs to preserve the constitutional principle of separation between state and church. It also advocates for the rights and views of nonbelievers, endorses candidates for political office, and publicizes the views of elected officials concerning religious liberty issues.