Jimmy Carter's reason for leaving the Baptist church

Losing my religion for equality

(A statement by Jimmy Carter made July 15, 2009 regarding his decision to leave his 60-year membership with the Southern Baptist Convention.)

I have been a practicing Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world.

So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention’s leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be “subservient” to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.

This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths. Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a Higher Authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women’s equal rights across the world for centuries.

At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.

The impact of these religious beliefs touches every aspect of our lives. They help explain why in many countries boys are educated before girls; why girls are told when and whom they must marry; and why many face enormous and unacceptable risks in pregnancy and childbirth because their basic health needs are not met.

In some Islamic nations, women are restricted in their movements, punished for permitting the exposure of an arm or ankle, deprived of education, prohibited from driving a car or competing with men for a job. If a woman is raped, she is often most severely punished as the guilty party in the crime.

The same discriminatory thinking lies behind the continuing gender gap in pay and why there are still so few women in office in the West. The root of this prejudice lies deep in our histories, but its impact is felt every day.

It is not women and girls alone who suffer. It damages all of us. The evidence shows that investing in women and girls delivers major benefits for society. An educated woman has healthier children. She is more likely to send them to school. She earns more and invests what she earns in her family.

It is simply self-defeating for any community to discriminate against half its population. We need to challenge these self-serving and outdated attitudes and practices – as we are seeing in Iran where women are at the forefront of the battle for democracy and freedom.

I understand, however, why many political leaders can be reluctant about stepping into this minefield. Religion, and tradition, are powerful and sensitive areas to challenge. But my fellow Elders and I, who come from many faiths and backgrounds, no longer need to worry about winning votes or avoiding controversy – and we are deeply committed to challenging injustice wherever we see it.

The Elders are an independent group of eminent global leaders, brought together by former South African president Nelson Mandela, who offer their influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity. We have decided to draw particular attention to the responsibility of religious and traditional leaders in ensuring equality and human rights and have recently published a statement that declares: “The justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a Higher Authority, is unacceptable.”

We are calling on all leaders to challenge and change the harmful teachings and practices, no matter how ingrained, which justify discrimination against women. We ask, in particular, that leaders of all religions have the courage to acknowledge and emphasize the positive messages of dignity and equality that all the world’s major faiths share.

The carefully selected verses found in the Holy Scriptures to justify the superiority of men owe more to time and place – and the determination of male leaders to hold onto their influence – than eternal truths. Similar biblical excerpts could be found to support the approval of slavery and the timid acquiescence to oppressive rulers.

I am also familiar with vivid descriptions in the same Scriptures in which women are revered as pre-eminent leaders. During the years of the early Christian church women served as deacons, priests, bishops, apostles, teachers and prophets. It wasn’t until the fourth century that dominant Christian leaders, all men, twisted and distorted Holy Scriptures to perpetuate their ascendant positions within the religious hierarchy.

The truth is that male religious leaders have had – and still have – an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world.

This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions – all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God. It is time we had the courage to challenge these views.

Jimmy Carter was President of the United States from 1977 to 1981.

"God's Warriors" have no faith

CNN's Christiane Amanpour did a sensational three-part, six hour documentary, "God's Warriors," on religious fundamentalists - Christian, Muslim and Jewish - who have declared war on the world - or at least some parts of it.

It occurred to me that as I watched these angry, vicious and desperate peoples fight to change the world to suit their philosophy or to force people to behave as they wish, that none of them had any real faith.

They apparently think that God or Allah is so weak and incapable of running the show, that rather than surrender to the universal commandments, tenants and philosophies of any great religion, these self-proclaimed warriors take matters into their own hands, see things in only a humanistic way and take physical action to harm or kill their avowed enemies.

An eye for an eye, never turn the other cheek. Wait, aren't both philosophies written in sacred books? I suppose it comes down to what you want to believe and practice.

Each group works from a core not of faith but of fear.

Fear and love cannot exist at the same moment. This fear is fomented with the perception of the world that, in their minds, insults - hurts - their sensibility. The primary feeling of fear, coupled with hurt, can develop into the secondary emotion of anger.

Fear, hurt and anger is what I saw over and over again in the series. Where is their true spirituality?

Where is any relationship at all to God and spirit.

It felt like the people fighting in the name of God or Allah - the vast, vast majority of whom are men - do not represent God at all. It all seems to be lip service - say the words, have no emotional, personal or real connection with what they're saying.

Finally, it hit me: they're not God's Warriors at all, they're My Own Religious Domination Warriors. They call themselves God's Warriors to rationalize their brutality, greed and psychotic need to dominate.

When I write my scripts, I am aware of each character's spiritual and material sides. Without a balance of both, the character will be lonely, addictive, suffer and/or die.

George Bush says God made him president because, he says, God wants the world to live in an American-type freedom, and to do this he is sending soldiers to commit a near-suicide mission to force Iraqi's to live that way. Well, in Iraq there are the Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis, each of whom may want to split up the country and NOT live in a democracy.

In fact, Islam is not as much a religion to fundamentalists as it is considered a nation. The Muslim religion=the Muslim nation, and fundamentalists want everyone to live the way they dictate. As in, there was no mention of women covering their heads or their bodies in the Koran - those are all "modern" rules declared by men who want to keep women subservient to men in the culture.

So of course their goal is to have the fundamentalist Muslim nation include the entire world, with women everywhere subsurvient to men, not permitted to drive a car, walk outside without a man at her side, etc. Women who have been journalists, broadcasters and held "men's" jobs have been brutally murdered. Likewise, if a woman "offends" the family men by doing anything Western women do freely - the men feel it's their "obligation," their duty, to kill these women, be they sister, mother or daughter, who stray from the near-psychotic need to keep women following the rules proclaimed by fundamentalist Muslim men, not Allah.

Just as fundamentalist Christian men believe women should remain subservient to them. At one time fundamentalist Christians used passages in the Christian bible as a reason to own slaves and consider black people "less than" white people.

Fundamentalist Jews believe they are God's Chosen People. Apart from everyone else. With Israel the chosen land. They do believe in the equality of women, however, including mandatory service in the Israeli militray alonside their Jewish brothers. Again, (is there an echo in here?) they believe there is one truth, theirs. And that the synagogue and state should be one.

A Jewish nation, just as Muslims want a Muslim nation (world), as Christians want a Christian nation (world).

Fundamentalist Jews believe theirs is the chosen religion.

Fundamentalist Muslims believe theirs is the only true religion.

Fundamentalist Christians believe theirs is the only true religion.

Actually, there are other religious groups who believe the same thing. That theirs is the only "real" "true" and "right" religion.

Christian fundamentalists have the same goal. Have Christians rule the world. There should be no division between church and state, with that ruling church being Christian. European nations and the UK went through this for hundreds of bloody years, finally realized it didn't work and have governed with a separation of church and state since.

Although fundamentalists ask, "How would Jesus vote?" It was pointed out that Jesus was never political. He was personal. He was spiritual. He related to God, not to gold.

But it's greed that moves people to try to rule the world. Power over people, their behavior and their money. Again, no separation between church and state.

I'll never forget interviewing an Iranian refugee living in the Pacific Northwest many years ago for a story I was doing on "sleeper cells" in the US, wherein he told me, "We thought nothing could be worse than the Shah. But the Ayatollah is a hundred times worse. We trusted that because he was a man of God he would work for the people, to show his love for people, to create peace and harmony among us and the world. He doesn't. It's just the opposite."

We had to photograph him in shadows because he said he would be killed for speaking to me if anyone discovered his identity. He showed me enough evidence to convince me this was true.

In case you don't know, the Shah of Iran was the constitutional monarch of Iran embraced by the US. He left to live in exile in 1979 during a violent revolution, replaced by the Ayatollah Khomeini, who called himself (in the "true ego-less spirit" of Allah's servant) the Supreme Leader, creating the Islamic Republic of Iran.

I think what happens to a lot of religious leaders who don't understand the humility they should have at the very core of their jobs, that of being a spiritual leader, is that they actually believe they ARE God. They see people react to them in such wonderment, they go, "Wow! Lookee me! I can say or do anything because I speak for God!"

They don't understand they have broken the first commandment, "Thou shalt put no other gods before me."

No matter what they say, or even if they believe they are fighting for a religion or a righteous cause, their actions say they fight for a secular, material cause - whatever that might be - above God. It looks to me as if they foresake his commandment, then use God's name to break it.

Interesting.

God must be shaking his/her head wondering, "what is with these human beings that they are so frightened of each other and so mired in their need to be "right" they don't understand how to let me help them make the most of their short time on earth. Don't they know they live in eternity as a spirit and have to account to me for their actions?

"Their need to be right and control others is so sadly apparent. It's obvious they have no faith in me or that others are capable of thinking for themselves or creating their own spiritual relationship with me. So much so they will destroy their time on earth - and others - in a profane quest that is now, and always has been, futile.

"LOL. Even *I* grant everyone free will. Which is why I let them play their shocking, heartbreaking, hurtful games. Perhaps one day when they are sick and tired of being sick and tired, they will understand that their spirits inherently supersede and transcend religion, politics and the need to be right or control anyone.

"It's despairing to see them abuse, squander and destroy the gifts I have given them: life, peace, beauty, nature, water, food, emotions, bodies, hearts, minds and their very souls. Within that soul comes the answer to every question. Look inside - find the key to your soul, open it and you will understand how to use these gifts as they were meant to be enjoyed.

"The truly spiritual person courageously enhances the world for everyone, not just himself, his family, his community, his cause. He does this by being who he truly is and becoming all he is meant to be, and supporting others to do the same. By doing that, he shines his light in the world that makes it brighter.

"Instead of being that spiritual person, creating instead of destroying, he douses himself in the cloak of man-made religion, using my name in vain, because he is so fearful - because of his secular, harmful, soul-killing need to be right and control everything in my domain - which he never, never will."

By the way, unlike George Bush, I won't claim I actually heard God speak to me. I just thought, "What would God say?" And the words popped out as written. Except referring to God as "me" using a lower case. Originally, I had it capitalized, but was notified that God is not about ego or being "above" anyone. God is about the power of spirit and humility.

Just a thought.