Jimmy Carter: A Life of Faithful Service

Born into a Baptist family in rural Georgia, Jimmy Carter took the teachings of the Bible from the peanut fields to the governor’s mansion, and then to the White House in 1977. Throughout his life, Carter used his moral compass and unflappable personal discipline—both grounded in his reading of the Bible—as a guiding beacon to “do his best.”
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, U.S. News & World Report Magazine Collection, LC-DIG-ppmsca-56535.
An avid, life-long reader—poetry, philosophy, fiction, and the Bible—Carter absorbed information like a sponge. While in the navy, Carter worked hard to improve himself, adopting an unrelenting work ethic that carried into his presidency, as well as the drive to do his best in everything, no matter if it rankled his colleagues or his children. Carter’s earnestness and his engineering practicality contributed to his folksy and, at times, stubborn personality. His expressive blue eyes could cut down tough questions or sparkle with his charismatic toothy smile while delivering a witty quip to reporters. In Carter’s mind, his prideful intelligence was tempered by his Christian faith. His readings of the Bible soothed his hubris. This is reinforced by the verses Carter cited and highlighted in his personal Bible housed in the Museum Collections. Specifically, he notes 2 Chronicles 7:14 on the end sheet (fig. 1), which calls for people to humble themselves in order to repent.
Figure 1. This Bible was gifted to Jimmy by his brother Billy for Christmas in 1975. At the top of the page, Jimmy notes “II Chron 7:14,” among other passages.
Since his bid for the Georgia state senate in the 1960s, Carter believed politics could supplement his Christian faith, his constituents could become his congregation. A perfectionist and overachiever, Carter felt the blow when he lost in political races, especially in his failed 1966 run for Georgia governor. It was after that defeat that he reaffirmed his belief in God and was born again. Two years later, Carter went on a mission retreat to Lockhaven, Pennsylvania, to proselytize. Talking with people in this working-class town crystalized his opinion that mixing faith with good governance could help solve human problems. He came to the conclusion that “the teachings of Christ could be applied to a secular existence.” Carter set his sights on the next gubernatorial race in 1970 and put all his energy into his political philosophy. Carter’s sense of righteousness, which guided his political rhetoric, was perhaps inspired by Romans 5 and 6, which he emphasized by dashes and lines in the margins of his Bible (fig. 2).
Figure 2. Carter marked certain passages in his Bible, one being Romans 5 and 6, which states that those who believe are justified through faith and that faith is a gift that was freely given through Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross.
Although Carter held progressive views on race, he abstained from the civil rights movement burgeoning in southern Georgia in the 1950s and 1960s, seemingly thinking about optics for future political endeavors. At the same time, he refused local tradition by declining an invitation to the White Citizens’ Council, a racist organization. Upon taking his oath of office on inauguration day, Carter declared in 1971, “I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over.” His time in Georgia’s governor’s mansion included prison reform, equal education, environmental legislation, and reform of the judiciary. His work took on a biblical tone: helping the poor, the disenfranchised, and many Black communities in Georgia.
In 1973, Carter turned his attention to seriously pursuing the presidency. By that point, Carter was becoming known in the political realm outside of Georgia’s state lines, although it would take a few years and a ton of work on the campaign trail for him to shake off his obscurity among the general population. As Watergate and the Vietnam War turned public opinion of national politics to one of corruption, lying, and scandal, Carter saw an opportunity for his brand of political rhetoric, which included ideas about love and justice firmly rooted in the Bible. On the campaign stump, Carter often proclaimed, “I want . . . a government that is as good and honest and decent and truthful and fair and competent and idealistic, that is compassionate and is filled with love, as are the American people.”
To the American people, Carter presented himself as a pragmatic idealist and a liberal from the South who would govern ethically from the White House. His critics thought him naïve, but the American people voted him in. On inauguration day in 1977, Carter placed his left hand on two Bibles, his family Bible stacked on top of the Bible used by George Washington in his first inauguration in 1789. In his speech, Carter quoted Micah 6:8 (fig. 3), entreating Americans “to walk humbly with thy God.” Afterward, the newly installed president walked a mile from the Capitol building to the White House. The simplicity of this stroll, with Carter being open and shaking hands with the public, was symbolic of his mission to bring frugality, integrity, and humility back to the Oval Office. Carter was uninterested in the quid pro quo political game in Washington, DC, wanting to clear the board of corruption and to dedicate his energy to human rights and a balanced budget.
Figure 3. Carter recited Micah 6:8 during his inauguration speech, setting the tone for how he would govern the nation.
President Carter donned a bulletproof vest under his suit in order to walk the inauguration parade route to the White House.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Bernard Gotfryd, LC-DIG-gtfy-05540
Carter’s domestic plans aimed to help underserved Americans. Turning to welfare reform, Carter cut the requirement to buy food stamps—a financial barrier—which added five million new beneficiaries to the program, most of whom were poor Black southerners. He also signed into law the reform of the Social Security Act in 1977, which increased taxes to support and propel the Social Security program for decades, instead of suffering a collapse by the mid-1980s due to lack of funding. In that same year, he granted amnesty to Vietnam draft dodgers in order to heal the country after the tragic and frustrating war.
Human rights advocacy was the cornerstone of Carter’s foreign policy and reflective of his idealistic moral fiber. His ongoing commitment to human rights, particularly his championing of religious freedom, even heartened those resisting the Soviet Union in eastern European countries. Carter’s lifelong reading of the Bible also inspired his diplomacy work in the Middle East. In the summer of 1978, Carter served as an honest broker between Israeli and Egyptian officials during 13 days of secret and intense negotiations. As a result, the Camp David Accords were agreed upon, setting up a framework for a peace treaty signed the following year. The words Carter delivered in the Capitol to observe these historic events were from the Bible: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be the children of God” (Matthew 5:9).
Jimmy Carter
Place: White House Lawn
Date: March 16, 1979
Credit: The Jimmy Carter Library
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (left), US President Jimmy Carter, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin make a three-way handshake at the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty.
The glossary of Jimmy Carter’s Bible has certain books of the Bible either circled or marked with a dash.
During the Iranian Hostage Crisis in 1979, where Iranian students stormed the US embassy in Tehran, Carter was between a rock and a hard place. Worried about the safety of each individual hostage and the potential to spark war if he responded with military might, Carter felt he could not push back against Iran with force. A failed rescue mission in 1980 made optics on the home front even worse as the country struggled with an oil crisis. This and other domestic issues added to Carter’s failed re-election attempt. To Carter’s great relief, the hostages in Iran were released the minute after President Ronald Reagan took the oath of office on inauguration day in 1981.
After the Oval Office, Carter continued to work in the spirit of his Christian upbringing. In 1986, instead of building a museum or library dedicated to his presidential service, the Carter Center reimagined Camp David. It served as a hub through which Carter could mediate international conflicts, monitor problematic foreign elections, and launch medical initiatives. He and his wife, Rosalynn, crisscrossed the world, bringing public health programs to countries in Latin America and Africa. This work led to the sharp decline of infections from Guinea worm and river blindness, among others, undoubtedly drawing inspiration from the Gospel stories of Jesus healing the sick and suffering.
River Blindness/ Onchocerciasis Photos & Images
Place: Afeta, Ethiopia
Date: Feb. 13, 2007
Credit: The Carter Center
President and Mrs. Carter help measure people's heights to determine how many Mectizan® treatments should be received to prevent the parasitic disease river blindness. President Carter provides a single annual treatment of the drug to a young girl after she is measured.
Jimmy and Rosalynn volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, swinging hammers into their nineties, working on roughly 4,930 homes in the United States and 13 other countries. In 2002, Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his “decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” In 2020, Carter spoke out on racial injustice in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. Drawing a hard line on systemic racism in a press release, he wrote, “[P]eople of power, privilege, and moral conscience must stand up and say, ‘No more’ to a racially discriminatory police and justice system, immoral economic disparities between whites and blacks, and government actions that undermine our unified democracy.” Carter’s views on poverty and racism stemmed from his progressive evangelical reading of the Bible and its teachings, which was ingrained in him as a child in Jim Crow-era Georgia.
Throughout his life, the Bible was a constant source of inspiration, comfort, and contemplation. From the time he was 18 years old, Jimmy Carter gave more than 1,700 Bible lessons. Reflecting on his faith in a 1999 interview, Carter said, “My religious faith is just like breathing for me.”
Carter gave Bible lessons at Sunday school at the Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Georgia well into his 90s. This photograph was taken in 2017.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Carol M. Highsmith, LC-DIG-highsm-42730
By Christy Wallover, Exhibit Developer
Published January 30, 2025
Sources:
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2023-02-27/jimmy-carter-close-eradicating-guinea-worm-disease
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Alter, Jonathan, His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life. Simon & Schuster, New York, NY. 2020.
Bird, Kai, The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter. Crown, New York, NY. 2021.