President Carter leaves the church…

Lately, I have been asking questions to get us all talking and assessing the true value, or lack there of, in the church. 

Today, I have read how former President Jimmy Carter is turning in his “membership card” to the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).  He is choosing to allow the United Nations to direct his life and faith  He appears to be turning to the United Nations as his new doctrinal foundation.  Carter expressed in his letter the following as his reason for breaking ties with the SBC:

“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 was in conflict with my belief – confirmed in the holy scriptures – that we are all equal in the eyes of God.”

Carter has one thing correct: we are all “equal in the eyes of God” (Gal 3:28).  However, Carter does a poor job at applying this truth.  Instead of seeing the husband’s role as a servant leader who serves and loves his wife as Christ loved the church, he hears Southern Baptists placing the women in the “subservient” role, casting her as a second rate citizen in the marriage.  I don’t know of one reputable Southern Baptist theologian who would teach Carter’s interpretation.  Carter, where are you getting this?

The saddest reality is that Carter has traded his theological moorings of a denomination that has a solid historical, evangelical, and biblical hermeneutic for the ever changing whims and ways of the political machine, in the United Nations.  Chuck Colson said: “Carter charges that biblical teaching about male headship is ‘in clear violation of the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.’”  Carter is leaning on the UN to shape his interpretation of social justice.  Do Southern Baptists have it all correct? No.  Have they burnt some bridges politically?  Yes.  But the Baptist Global Response  has done great things in a coutries struggling with development and peace to find some hope and help.  The UN, United Nations, we felt it stood for United Nothing while living in Zambia.  Because so much of the mass killings that happened in Rwanda in the ’90s and Sudan today, could be stopped if the UN would stand up and actually do something. 

So Carter, if you happen to run across my blog, I don’t think you will be missed by the Southern Baptists, according to Al Mohler.   Nevertheless, wherever you land theologically, make sure your theology isn’t a “United Nothing” theology.  Make sure you align yourself with something that aligns itself with a reliable, time tested, and trustworthy doctrine.

1. Tim L says:

   July 27, 2009 at 8:58 am

   Excellent remarks. It’s laughable that Carter ever saw himself as in tune with Southern Baptists, and it’s hilarious that it took him this long to disassociate.