Posted on 03/26/2012 6:48:24 AM PDT by IbJensen
Former President Jimmy Carter (left) has just released a new study Bible, and if his recent interview with Huffington Post religion editor Paul Raushenbush is any indication, the former President’s study notes will offer a disconcerting combination of biblical wisdom and liberal notions.
Carter recently told CNN religion writer Eric Marrapodi that he has been teaching Sunday School since he was an 18-year-old Navy midshipman, and has taught the adult class at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Georgia nearly 700 times since returning home after leaving the White House in 1980.
The notes in the Zondervan-published NIV Lessons from Life Bible: Personal Reflections with Jimmy Carter are pulled from Carter’s 70-plus years of study, preparation, and delivery of scriptural precepts as a Bible instructor, and include such wisdom as this observation on the passage in Mark’s Gospel in which Christ’s disciples are arguing over who is the greatest. “Like the disciples, we should not be proud, seek an ascendant position or argue about who’s the greatest among us,” writes the former President.
Similarly, in his interview with Raushenbush Carter offers this inspiring and biblical observation on Christian behavior: “The example that I set in my private life is to emulate what Christ did as he faced people who were despised like the lepers or the Samaritans. He reached out to them, he reached out to poor people, he reached out to people that were not Jews and treated them equally. The more despised and the more in need they were, the more he emphasized that we should go to and share with them our talent, our ability, our wealth, our influence.”
But as Raushenbush’s interview also reveals, Carter’s take on such issues as divine inspiration of Scripture, the exclusivity of the Christian faith, and the acceptability of homosexuality will leave some conservative evangelicals doubtful about the former President’s understanding of biblical Christianity.
For example, Carter seems to cast doubt on the absolute truth of Scripture when he tells Raushenbush: “When we go to the Bible we should keep in mind that the basic principles of the Bible are taught by God, but written down by human beings deprived of modern day knowledge. So there is some fallibility in the writings of the Bible.”
Asked if Christ’s claim to be “the way the truth and the life” (John 14:16) disqualifies other faith traditions as paths to God, Carter takes it as an opportunity to denigrate conservative evangelicals such as the Southern Baptist denomination he left a few years ago over theological differences. “There are many verses in the Bible that you could interpret very rigidly and that makes you ultimately into a fundamentalist,” Carter responded. “When you think you are better than anybody else — that you are closer to God than other people, and therefore they are inferior to you and subhuman — that leads to conflict and hatred and dissonance among people when we should be working for peace.”
As for Christ’s declaration that He, the Prince of Peace, ultimately “did not come to bring peace but a sword” to earth (Matthew 10:34), Carter apparently missed the implication that Christ’s call for men and women to follow the way of the Cross would cause them, like Him, to be despised and rejected by the world. Instead, he interprets that clear call to absolute devotion to Christ to mean nothing more than “that when we have conflict in our mind or hearts, between our secular duties and teachings of Christ, we should put the teachings of Christ first.”
Perhaps most troubling, however, is Carter’s rejection of the clear biblical condemnation of homosexuality, telling Raushenbush that homosexuality “was well known in the ancient world, well before Christ was born, and Jesus never said a word about homosexuality.” Ignoring both Old and New Testament condemnation of the act, as well as the mercy God has for those who turn away from sin, Carter declared that “I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies.”
In 2010 LifeSiteNews.com noted that Jimmy Carter speculated that with the election of Barack Obama as the nation’s first black President, it was just a matter of time before Americans would lay aside their negative prejudice and elect a “gay” President as the next step in the country's march toward civil rights. “Step-by-step, we have realized that this issue of homosexuality has the same adverse and progressive elements as when we dealt with the race issue 50 years ago, or 40 years ago,” Carter said in an interview published on the website Big Think. “So I would say that the country is getting acclimated to a president who might be female, who might, obviously, now, be black, and who might be as well a gay person.”
LifeSiteNews noted that in spite of his evangelical Baptist roots, “Carter has established himself as a firm supporter of the gay agenda. In 2007 the former president urged the U.S. military to repeal the ban on open homosexuals in the service.”
For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
(Perhaps Jimmy has created lust in his little mind for a sex other than female.)
It does not sound like God changed his mind about sodomy in going from the Old Testament to the New. And for those of you who claim that Paul's writing is not truly scripture (2 Peter 3:15,16):
And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. (Emphasis added)
Maybe then you will say Peter's letters are not scripture either? See, he says that the ignorant and unstable twist Paul's letters just as they do the other scriptures, meaning, Pauls letters are part of the scriptures, otherwise why would Peter write "the other scriptures" after referring to Pauls letters?
Watch out for that shark below you, Zondervan Press.
That is why He needs enlightened liberals to rewrite His words for Him - to correct the errors that God overlooked. I can't even imagine the word view of those who place themselves above God. Who are you going to trust: Moses, Jesus, Paul, and Peter, or Jimmy Carter, Barney Frank, and Barack Obama? Apparently the country is split on answering that question.
I have NO doubt that GOD has written ICABOD across Jimmy’s door.
“That is why He needs enlightened liberals to rewrite His words for Him - to correct the errors that God overlooked.”
http://thepeoplescube.com/current-truth/the-new-progressive-bible-t992.html
What a lovely straw man; and actually humorous in an ironic way.
Jimmy Carter, from failed President to failed Theologian.
Jimmy Carter now has too much time in his hands.
He seems to want to follow the footsteps of the other enlightened President we had — Thomas Jefferson, who authored his own CUT-AND_PASTE Bible.
I think Jimmy would be more comfortable as a Mormon.
“When we go to the Bible we should keep in mind that the basic principles of the Bible are taught by God, but written down by human beings deprived of modern day knowledge. So there is some fallibility in the writings of the Bible.”
“There are many verses in the Bible that you could interpret very rigidly and that makes you ultimately into a fundamentalist,” Carter responded. “When you think you are better than anybody else — that you are closer to God than other people, and therefore they are inferior to you and subhuman — that leads to conflict and hatred and dissonance among people when we should be working for peace.”
Revelation 22:18-19
Jimmy is worried that now that Obama is the new Worst President in History that he won’t get attention any longer. So now Jimmy is campaigning for the worst Out-of-Office President in history.
Clearly he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. The bible is clear on this. I suggest if one doesn’t like the bible to find a new religion. What’s the point if you can just change the bible to fit your needs? It’s like they are just using the bible as a blueprint so they don’t have to write as much as they create their own religion up based on their views. And they get the benefit of calling themselves Christians.
Just add the letter "M" to his usual religious leanings, aka moron, and bingo!
So Jimmy Carter is not satisfied to simply be the worst president ever, he now has to correct God.
One minor correction: He's now the SECOND worst president ever.
So what we see is that Carter doesn’t believe in the bible. He thinks he sould pick and choose among verses then reinterpret other veses as needed until the bible agrees with him. A classic example of the “itching ears” Christian Paul talked about.
So, is Jimmah saying that Obama is maybe our first gay, black, transgendered President, as being well as our first (closet) Muslim President and first non-Natural Born Citizen President?
Unfortunately for the country, he's far from being the first Socialist President...though arguably the most overt Socialist ever elected.
Jimmah Catarrh, however, still remains the stupidest President (though he MAY have now been dispalaced as Worst President Ever)...and is no better as a theologian.
Take note, Carter changed churches to one that is not in the S.B.C., I've seen articles stating that Carter left the S.B.C.
Individuals are not members of the S.B.C., churches are. Individual churches affiliated with the S.B.C. are autonomous and do not "take orders" from it.
There is no depth of depravity to which the second worst president in history will not sink.
Will the Lord not favor us by cashing in this pompous yokel’s chips.
"Modern Day Knowledge" which confirms the majority of the biblical writings depending on an individual's intellectual honesty.
Like many people, Carter is "deceived" by evil just like Adam! The difference is Carter is sternly arrogant about his special knowledge, and the astonishing lack of wisdom these liberal elitist prix show is just not surprising anymore!
What "fallibility" is Carter talking about? Apparently, whatever his arrogant mind is deciding is not true in scripture. Using the bible like a menu to chose what's "true" is the epitome of arrogant ignorance, especially for someone who claims to be Christian!
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