Posted on 03/21/2012 10:38:14 AM PDT by Morgana
ATLANTA, GEORGIA, March 20, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Former president Jimmy Carter has been strongly identified as a “Born Again” Christian and as a liberal Democrat for nearly five decades. He is once more blending those roles as he promotes “his” latest book, his own study Bible.
The NIV Lessons from Life Bible: Personal Reflections with Jimmy Carter contains the full text of the New International Version of the Bible and the former president’s prayers, reflections, and asides.
During his book tour to promote a study of the Scriptures, Carter mentioned he supports same-sex “marriage.”
President Carter told Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, senior religion editor of The Huffington Post:
Homosexuality was well known in the ancient world, well before Christ was born and Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of his teachings about multiple things – he never said that gay people should be condemned. I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies. (Emphasis added.)
However, he said he drew the line, “maybe arbitrarily, in requiring by law that churches must marry people.”
“If a church decides not to, then government laws shouldn’t require them to,” he said, adding his own church accepts “gay members on an equal basis.”
When Raushenbush pressed him about whether he believed the Bible is God’s word, Carter answered, “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. But the basic principles are applicable to my life and I don’t find any conflict among them.”
“There are many verses in the Bible that you could interpret very rigidly,” Carter said, “and that makes you ultimately into a fundamentalist.”
“Fundamentalists,” he wrote in his 2005 book Our Endangered Values, tend “to demagogue emotional issues” and “are often angry and sometimes resort to verbal or even physical abuse against those who interfere with the implementation of their agenda.” Carter applied this term to figures as divergent as the Ayatollah Khomeini and Pope John Paul II, to atheist neoconservatives and his fellow Baptists.
He contended the “mandated subservience of women by Christian fundamentalists” contributes to the Islamic practice of female genital mutilation.
Carter wrote that he exchanged harsh words with the late Pope John Paul II during a state visit over what Carter classified as the Pope’s “perpetuation of the subservience of women.” He added, “there was more harshness when we turned to the subject of ‘liberation theology’.”
The former president, who has released recordings of the Sunday School classes he teaches and written previous books about the Bible, disassociated himself from the Southern Baptist Convention in 2000. He and former President Bill Clinton attempted to realign the Baptist faith in a more liberal direction by calling for a new Baptist convention in 2008. The formation of this new Baptist body, he wrote, constituted an “historic event for the Baptists in this country and perhaps for Christianity.”
Carter, whose single term in office was marred by turbulence at home and abroad, has denounced those who disagree with his political views in strident terms.
Pro-lifers, Carter wrote, “do not extend their concern to the baby who is born.” He instead suggested the nation support contraceptive sex education, taxpayer funding of international “family planning,” and embryonic stem cell research.
In addition to nuptial vows, Carter encouraged the military to end the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in 2007, and in 2010, he told the website Big Think it was time to elect “a gay person” as president.
The new study Bible, published by Zondervan, is available from bookstores nationwide.
first Pat, now Jimmy PING!
Although I don’t personally care if gay folks get civilly hitched, the Bible seems to have Other Ideas (see Leviticus, Romans, etc.).
And if Jimmy’s “edition” of the Bible excises those prohibitions, I wonder if it also will get rid of these two verses near the end of the Revelation to John:
[18] For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
[19] And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
Nor did He speak in favor of Homosexuality. The rest of Scripture is quite clear, Carter is clearly wrong.
Why would I want spiritual guidance from any pol, Dem or Republican?
As Creator of the universe, Jesus did not have to speak about marriage. He already had when created it between a man and a woman.
Also, I can’t believe Carter is an “Evangelical” when I’m on the Pope’s side against him.
Carter was as bad of a Christian as he was as a president. He continually lied about almost everything. Abortion increased dramatically during his presidency and he helped to promote it.
He helped to spread Communism and the oppression of Christians throughout the world. He helped put brutal dictators into power. He helped to spread evil throughout the world.
Now he wants to be a bible salesman.
-—, I wonder if it also will get rid of these two verses near the end of the Revelation to John:——
John was referring to the book that he was writing, Revelation. The canon of the NT was yet to be determined.
As for Jimmy, he’s still a fool.
He does make reference to what marriage is , ie a man will leave father and mother and join his wife and also he referernces sodom and gomorrah Matthew 10:14-15. The idea that Jesus doesn’t specifically talks about homosexuality is ridiculous... I believe Jesus never talked about rape or pedophilia, so is is rape okay and have sex with a child?
Mr. Carter, apparently, skips over Leviticus and Romans.
OMG.
And who decides where the fallibility is?
Christ most certainly condemned homosexuality. In both Matthew and Mark he condemns "pornea" which is the greek word Jews used for any form of sex which is not permitted under Jewish law. This certainly included homosexuality.
Gageth me. And what a trend this’ll start...
I was simply pointing out that Jesus did not have to speak about the subject for it to be morally binding since the teaching is found elsewhere in God’s revelation. As you point, Jesus does not talk about everything that is immoral, so to say Jesus not mentioning something means it is automatically morally upright is a fallacious notion if you have an orthodox view of the canon of Scripture.
He tries to make Christianity fit his world views and ignores the scriptures that make him uncomfortable. Matthew 19:4,5 shows that Jesus is talking about a man and a woman - not a mention of same sex or any other unions that man can come up with. Just a man and a woman.
I have no need for this Bible he is selling as I feel he was a terrible president and even a worse Bible teacher.
That is about the strangest thing I've ever heard.
The Christian treatment of women (”In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” is in direct OPPOSITION to what islamists do to women.
When Christians go to Islamic countries like Afghanistan and certain African countries to open schools that women may go to, the schools get bombed. There's no relationship except an inverse one.
Damn, why can’t that dried-up old attention whore go room temp already?????
STFU, Carter.
Liberals like Carter are amazing: To them, God agrees with all of their political opinions.
What a coincidence!
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
I don't see any provision in this statement for the joining of same sex couples. Since Jesus was speaking directly to divorce, it seems to me that he lays out what God intended marriage to be and there is no mention of men joined to men or women to women. Clear to me, but then I must be a fundamentalist.
The simple truth of the matter is, Jesus didn’t have to say ONE word about homosexuality, or anything to warn us about homosexuality, at the time Jesus walked among men homosexuality was a capital crime punishable by death. Common knowledge to everyone of that era and common sense to everyone of this era that cares enough about the TRUTH to seek it honestly.
Can you show us in the Bible where Christ was a homosexuality advocate? (NO)
Christ said... Mark 10:6
But from the beginning of creation he [God] made them male and female. 10:7 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother, 10:8 and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 10:9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Nuff said..
This is yet another reason to boycoot the NIV organization... whatever they call themselves now....
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