Leaves of the City

Jesus said,
“You know that the rulers of the Pagans lord it over them,
and their great ones are tyrants over them.
It will not be so among you;
but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant…,
just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve…

The cross [of Christ] is foolishness to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved it is the power of God…
God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise;
God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong…

–Jesus the Messiah, Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 20; Apostle Paul, First Corinthians, chapter 1

Please note that references in parentheses (-) refer to books of the Bible unless otherwise specified.
Source Note: Much of the historical specifics in this reflection are drawn from a documentary film on Jimmy Carter, viewed on the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) in America, October, 2024. At the same time, many of my generation can remember some if not much of these matters from personal experience – even though many (most?) of us seem to have misunderstood much of their greater noble meaning, then and how…

I have not written in my blog for a while, struggling for inspiration, with no small feeling of depression over the travesty that is so much of American public culture today. Sometimes we need some fresh perspective to rekindle some hope in our lives. My wife mentioned to me this afternoon, President Jimmy Carter turned 100 years old today. I then noticed a PBS documentary on Carter’s life and service. So I was reminded of the Christian witness of someone I consider a hero, a vastly  underestimated role-model, but deeply inspiring.

Humble Beginnings

Jimmy Carter was “just” a peanut farmer, an outsider, misunderstood, even scorned by fellow White people, a true political underdog in any U.S. Presidential race. Few people thought he could do much of anything, not that way. Carter never got that memo.

In functional terms, Jimmy had three parents. In the American South, his dad was a White supremacist. His mother was a nurse, who took care of Black patients for free or was often paid only by a chicken. He also grew up side-by-side with many Black people, one of whom was an uneducated Black woman, whose wisdom in his upbringing formed one of the great influences of his life. Much of this Black influence was rooted in their different kind of Christian faith…

As an adult, Carter and his family lived amidst Ku Klux Klan activities and resulting life-threatening situations during the 1960’s. He himself stated that his first reason for entering politics was to pursue and encourage integration of Whites and Blacks in American society. Despite humble and harrowing origins, Carter’s vision for public service, from the start in its core, reached for ideals beyond what most thought possible, or even desirable. 

A Different Way of Leading

Throughout, Jimmy Carter’s political career was committed to truth and peacemaking, even though it cost him a good deal personally and professionally. Such an idea has seldom been practiced in American politics, at any level, before or since. It is ridiculed by those committed to power-politics today, by which Carter’s kind of approach is considered weak and foolish – sort of like God’s whole way in the world…

But Carter’s vision was no shallow fantasy or mere wishful thinking. He lived and worked in politics this way from deep inspiration, rooted in his personal Christian faith and Christian social ethics. Earlier on, in the middle of it all, he conducted door-to-door evangelism, a real evangelical in spirit. At the same time, his convictions pursued relentless hope for justice and peace in society and the world. In the process, he demonstrated that such Christian vision and practice, integrated throughout one’s life and cultural service, can be very different than the attitudes and actions of “conservative” White nationalistic Fundamentalism.

Carter’s second campaign for the governor ship of Georgia was extremely challenging. In a thoroughly “southern” state, it seemed he needed the support of White “conservatives.” But when he won that election, in his inauguration speech, he courageously stated: the time for racial discrimination is over. Then he brought many more Black people into the government of Georgia. Later, when national Black congressional leaders interviewed prospective candidates for the American Presidency and asked them how many Black persons they had on their staff, most of them had one. Carter had so many he couldn’t remember exactly how many – he had twenty-seven.

Personally, I have three especially sharp political memories from my growing up years. One was being ashamed of President Nixon for his corruption, and then his unwillingness really to own up to it (sound familiar?). A second was reading in junior high a biography of Jimmy Carter and how his open faith-centered approach to politics led him to champion principles of social justice. A third was my high school government teacher stating that one requirement to be President of the United States was massive selfish egotism (sound familiar?). That is right in many cases it seems; but Jimmy Carter has been one of the few that proves leadership can still be done differently, with humility. It is yet possible to serve through the role of the U.S. Presidency with a faith that seeks peace and justice, by a heart of service, even at personal cost.

By the Fruits We Can Know

Most of the time it seems, as his political career developed, White Fundamentalist “conservatives” everywhere should actually consider Jimmy Carter one of their own, a hero by their own standards: he was often rejected and devoured by the secular press. But what was far too often forgotten then as well as now is how Carter’s Presidency featured many bold priorities and projects an ethic of peace and justice will affirm with enthusiasm. His policies demonstrated active care for this God-given earth that supports human life, such as expanding national parks, and intensifying opposition to many human abuses of the environment. He continued to multiply the number of Black persons filling leadership roles in national government. By one report, his Presidency never dropped a bomb or fired a bullet in international affairs. And against all odds, he brokered an apparently impossible Middle-East peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. 

Throughout, Carter was not a political “schmoozer,” he did not manipulate the bureaucratic system for favors to his personal advantage, or merely for the privilege of his own small groupies – indeed, often the opposite. Just as one example, his determined efforts for energy conservation, though driven by conscientious environmental concern, were hugely unpopular because it might cost us some personal self-sacrifice – one of the great “heresies” in American politics. Altogether, this approach constituted his political “mistakes” or “crimes” that cost him the support of the people.

A Presidency of which those are really the only “criticisms” that can be fairly assessed, while its attributes include many initiatives for real justice and peace in the world, is one of the greatest Presidencies in American history. Carter was a political outsider, who cared about doing what is true and right, even if it was not politically popular. It cost him reelection. It should earn him our highest esteem, for self-sacrifice, humility, and service, through the most powerful position in the world. Such integrity was his greatest “weakness.” That remains our greatest need in American politics today.

Jesus began to show his disciples that he must undergo great suffering… But Peter… began to rebuke him, “…this must never happen to you.” Then Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!…You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?”

The mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus… and asked a favor of him: “Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” But Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?”

Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the pagans lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant… — just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve…”

The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength… God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world…

-Matthew 16, 20; 1 Cor 1 (see NRSV, NIV)

Character In the Furnace of Crisis

At the close of Carter’s Presidency, when extremist fundamentalist Islamic leadership in Iran seized American hostages, American politics and society and culture basically allowed that power play halfway across the world to determine our next Presidential election. That functional warped alliance defeated one of the most visionary, truth seeking, peace-oriented, justice-promoting, and integrity-minded Presidents in our history. WE allowed that to happen, a shallow, non-thinking society, that cannot seem to distinguish between the importance of truth and justice for all that we all so deeply need in this broken world, and the opposing force of shallow TV-Hollywood personality-cults that now seem to be requisite in American politics.

Carter‘s greatest “mistake” in that hostage crisis was that he tirelessly sought a peaceful resolution, and refused to use a violent military option because it would likely result in the killing of many of the hostages – what a “crime.” That “mistake” cost him the Presidency. When an alternative attempted rescue operation failed, with the sacrifice of some military personnel, Carter took the responsibility himself, and the country turned against him. America turned instead to its preferred true-blue option: shallow show-biz politics defeated Carter’s vision in the next election. American culture has repeatedly been paying a dear price ever since.

On the ensuing day of the peaceful transition of power here, all the hostages came home safely, as Jimmy Carter had served so faithfully, diligently, and conscientiously to bring about. His approach resulted in the peaceful safe release of all the hostages. In response to that kind of mindset, commitment, and bold hopes, American society has often instead chosen an ideological path plunging us into shallow irresponsible politics, an overriding distain for any constructive justice and peace that government can do, with favoritism to the wealthy resulting in some of the greatest disparities between the filthy rich and everybody else in the history of human civilizations. American culture might never be the same.

I believe the best foundational principles of truth and social ethics that form American constitutional democracy – especially its promise of human rights for all persons, all of whom I believe to be created in the image of God. So I continue to stand aghast at how so many Americans can take this democracy and its best bold and rare principles of goodness for granted, by voting in the most foolish ways imaginable, for wider injustice and discrimination and corruption, while favoring those already most privileged, and following shallow entertainment-style emotional popularity. No civilization in history ultimately has lasted that way.

Now, “conservative” White-superior Fundamentalist nationalism generally seems to think a way of leadership like that pursued by President Carter just doesn’t get it, it’s just too weak, it misses the point – their own power-point, of course. Get what exactly? – White superiority?, the idolatry of White nationalism?, cruel laws that dehumanize women?, state religion (their form of it, of course)?, decadent wealth for a few while millions still starve without clean drinking water?, any kind of corruption with no sense of responsibility for the good of society at large?, numerous other ways to act selfishly without much care for our fellow human beings?, etc. and forever? Actually, I think anyone can get that, just how wrong all of that is, with mere minutes of deeper thinking and discerning for truth. I think Jimmy Carter got that better than most, and sought to follow a better way, as a person, and as a way of doing public service for a great deal of good in this world. The question is, what way will we choose?

A Magnum Opus of Footnotes

After one Presidential term of caring service, Jimmy Carter subsequently “retired” into one of the greatest careers of public service of any leader in American history. His post presidency, with its dedication to humane service for the good of common people, will possibly never be rivaled again (though it seems President Obama is seeking to give it a run).

Jimmy Carter proceeded for many years to work for real peace in the world, fighting for cures of impossible diseases in developing nations, and building homes with Habitat for Humanity. Sometime in the midst of all that, he observed the great trouble in the world in the form of the deep divide between rich and poor, and how this troubled him personally because he is among the privileged. If even a few more Americans could be that courageously honest today, that could change our world. For much of those years, he taught a Bible class on Sundays; and spent the rest of the week doing his best to live it out in dedicated service. 

It may seem this story recommends a mere human being to a degree that would otherwise be a kind of hero worship. I seek to avoid that, and do not believe any mere human is anything like super-human. Jimmy Carter himself later said he does not consider himself a hero. So what can we say? – his life speaks for itself! It seems there is no need to bloat or overstate Carter’s genuine humility and commitment to service, and his belief in impossible miracles like peace in the world and healing deadly diseases. He has lived a different kind of Christianity that looks surprisingly more like the approach and principles of Jesus. If anyone can say anything close to this about us upon our hundredth birthday, that will be a life well-lived and a service well-given. Let us all consider ourselves challenged – with this evidence and hope that seeking this better way is yet astoundingly possible in this mixed up world.

Wisdom That Remains

Finally here, there are some things that must not be left unsaid or undone (for when they are, such things might yet become among the chief of sins). I do not believe it is coincidence that we are called to attention by the reminder of the life service of President Jimmy Carter in the homestretch of the current U.S. Presidential election. The approach Carter has sought to follow has been almost everything that the current spirit of “conservative” White Fundamentalist nationalism is not. That “conservative” ideology is almost everything that the ideals Carter aspired to are not. Most importantly, the way of leadership and service that Jimmy Carter worked to follow testifies to a vision of faith and love that is greater and deeper, more hopeful, more constructive, and more caring – in the face of the current “conservative” ideology that is nearly none of that and looks almost nothing like the way of Jesus.

So the real question is, for self-claimed Christian believers above all, do we get what true greatness and leadership is about – according to Jesus? Will we enact the courage to follow that way of love and service and compassionate justice, however foolish or weak others might think us to be? Will we seek to promote and support that kind of leadership and service so desperately needed in every arena of society and culture, beginning with public service? Or will we just continue to settle for and practice the American shallow show-biz version of age-old selfish power and greed?…

Readers are also encouraged to explore more reflections in this series: Culture Contact.

God so loved the world… God is love!
Then I saw a new heaven and new earth…
and the tree of life…
at the middle of the great street of the city…
and the leaves of the tree
are for the healing of the cultures.

John 3; 1 John 4; Revelation 21, 22

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