Carter 2020: America Wins by Standing for Human Rights

2020—Carter’s vision, if not reëlection campaign.

While Donald Trump and pious toadies like Scott Pruitt make a mockery of Christianity, Rev. Carl Kline of Brookings reminds us what we get from a real Christian President like Jimmy Carter:

The optimism, moral stature and faith of Carter, is a balm in a time when those qualities seem in short supply. He represents the best of what we know as evangelical Christianity. For him, an evangelical is “someone who has faith and tries to put that faith into practice and tries to convince other people to share that faith by setting an example.” His example of service to others is more than evident in his work with Habitat for Humanity, the Carter Center and his institutional relationships with church and academy. He still teaches classes at Emory University and adult Sunday School at Maranatha Baptist Church [Rev. Carl Kline, “Faith,” Living Nonviolence, 2018.06.29].

Kline draws inspiration, as ought we all, from this May interview with Carter about his latest book (his 47th, which means he has likely written more books than Donald Trump has read). In this interview, Carter repeats a formula for American greatness that he often cites:

…One of the things that America would like to be is a superpower, but there are more elements of being a superpower than just military strength. The United States of America ought to be seen by the rest of the world as a champion of peace, not war, a champion of human rights, a champion of equality, and a champion of generosity to help people in need. Those are the kind of values that need to be emphasized in the future of America, and I hope and pray that this will be the case [Jimmy Carter, interview with Elizabeth Palmer, “Why Jimmy Carter Is Hopeful,” The Christian Century, 2018.05.07].

Kline says Carter lived those words as President:

One of the enduring memories of the Carter Presidency for me was his emphasis on human rights. In one of my cynical moments at the time, I bemoaned what I saw as window dressing on human rights in the presence of a friend from Latin America. He was quick to correct me. What I couldn’t see from my vantage point he was able to clearly witness. The emphasis Carter placed on human rights was making a daily difference in his country and the activities of governments in the whole region [Kline, 2018.06.29].

As our country now struggles with its own reckless human rights abuses, Carter’s words also point toward the difference each of us can make. Asked to name a book other than the Bible that he’d like all Americans to read, Carter referred to a great Russian text (likely not among the Russian texts the current occupant of the White House reads):

I’ve had a lot of favorite books in my life. One that I read quite early in life, when I was about ten or 12 years old, was War and Peace. This book is primarily about the 1812 War and how Napoleon invaded Russia and was rejected. But it shows that the course of human events was affected not by powerful people—like the czar of Russia or Napoleon—but by the common ordinary people. I think that’s a lesson that we need to remember. The course of human events, the resolution of our basic questions, and the answering of our different challenges are ultimately dependent on the cumulative influence of ordinary citizens [Carter, in Lind, 2018.05.07].

Let’s accumulate our ordinary influence and restore America’s greatness by championing human rights, equality, and generosity to those in need. Maybe we can’t reëlect Carter, but we can elect decent patriots who follow Carter’s honest, consistent decency and morality.