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For almost three decades, President Carter has regularly spent part of each Sunday reading from scripture and sharing his personal faith with neighbors, friends, and visitors at his Baptist church in Plains, Georgia. In Living Faith, he draws on this experience, exploring the values closest to his heart and the personal beliefs that have nurtured and sustained him.
For President Carter, faith finds its deepest expression in a life of compassion, reconciliation, and service to others. Living Faith is filled with stories of people whose lives have touched his—some from the world stage, more from modest walks of life. We see how President Carter learned about other faiths from Prime Minister Menachim Begin and President Anwar Sadat; learned a lesson in forgiveness from a clash with commentator George Will; how he was inspired by the simple theology of preacher Ely Cruz, "Love God and the person in front of you"; and how the cheerful strength of family friend Annie Mae Rhodes taught him the meaning of "patient faith."
Rooted in scripture and infused with a vision of how a dynamic faith can enrich our public and private lives, this is the most personal book yet by one of our most admired Americans—a warmly inspirational volume to give and to share.
Former president Carter's faith has been forged in some hard times, and these are unstintingly detailed here. He eloquently describes the loss of both his parents and all three of his siblings to cancer, as well as his own bitter political defeats, bankruptcy, and ostracism in the 1960s for refusing to join the racist White Citizens' Council. Carter outlines his own faults, his remoteness as a husband in the early years of his marriage, and his authoritarian treatment of his three sons. What emerges from these trials is a patient maturity, unburdened by trite answers to the basic problem of theodicy. Life is hard, and Jimmy Carter knows it. But he has also sustained a growing faith in the One who has guided him since he accepted Christ as a child. Carter's faith is a fin-de-siècle cross between ecumenical pluralism and old-time southern gospel religion. His beliefs are theologically sophisticated (he has read widely among 20th-century theologians such as Barth, Tillich, and Neibuhr) but still simple enough that the whole book reads like one of his famous Sunday school classes, a homiletical treat that relies on personal experiences and storytelling to relay a complex message. In the end, Carter's faith weighs in heavily on the side of social justice (though, in true Baptist form, he also relates some experiences from his missionary evangelism trips). He places the international mediation work of his Carter Center in a spiritual context, describing behind-the-scenes peace talks with Haiti's General Cedras and the late Kim Il Sung of North Korea, and issues a clarion call for peace through negotiation. He also writes spiritedly of his work for Habitat for Humanity, building affordable housing for the world's poor.
Carter's life is best summarized by the title of one of his chapters: faith in action.
Jimmy Carter was the thirty-ninth President of the United States. He is the author of ten previous books, including the national bestseller Always a Reckoning. He lives in Plains, Georgia, with his wife, Rosalynn.
| Preface | ||
| Introduction | 3 | |
| 1 | The Search for Faith | 16 |
| 2 | A Rooted Life | 39 |
| 3 | Finding Peace at Home | 61 |
| 4 | Leadership and Faith | 89 |
| 5 | To Establish Justice | 107 |
| 6 | Searching for Peace | 135 |
| 7 | Faith in Action | 161 |
| 8 | Crossing Barriers | 185 |
| 9 | Reaching Out | 200 |
| 10 | The Lord I've Come to Know | 220 |
| 11 | Abundant Life | 236 |
| Acknowledgments | 257 | |
| Index | 259 |
Anonymous
Posted September 27, 2004
Jimmy Carter did not decide to come to my church to talk with us. However I acquired this book through my church as the most admired living ex-president in America i was pleasantly surprised to read about how he thinks of the world both secular and religious and his career in the navy, as a farmer, and in politics. He is truly a good human being before being a politician. I think he was the most qulaified of presidents in the past 50 years and bad things happened during his administration which he details and says how he dealt with them from the inside. Thank you president Carter for passing your faith on to the world at the Carter Center and through Habitat for Humanity and your work in Sudan and other African Nations under civil wars.
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Overview
For almost three decades, President Carter has regularly spent part of each Sunday reading from scripture and sharing his personal faith with neighbors, friends, and visitors at his Baptist church in Plains, Georgia. In Living Faith, he draws on this experience, exploring the values closest to his heart and the personal beliefs that have nurtured and sustained him.
For President Carter, faith finds its deepest expression in a life of compassion, reconciliation, and service to ...