Really, really laughing out loud. Yes, they should certainly interpret holy teachings according to their own opinion, everybody else does. He can do just like everyone else and start his own church, with his own teachings just like hundreds of thousands of churches do today. The problem is that Truth is Truth, it isn't a matter of opinion.
Worst. Former. President. Ever.
Despite wording from the Bible such as “The husband and wife are of equal worth before God,” and “A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church” (i.e. willing to die for her), critics like Carter mischaracterize the statement on the Family as misogynist because it also stated from Ephesians that a wife is to submit graciously “to the servant leadership of her husband.”
As for the statement on the Church, Southern Baptists stated a consensus view found among the fellowship of churches that “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” Only 35 churches out of over 45,000 have a female pastor (less than one-tenth or one percent — which means that the so-called moderate or progressive congregations in the SBC aren’t hiring women as pastors).
Jimmy Carter has made his “departure” pronouncement at least twice before (1993, http://media.sbhla.org.s3.amazonaws.com/7565,14-May-1993.PDF, and 2000, http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=6703) and also in his 2005 book, Our Endangered Values. However, he continues to worship and teach at Maranatha Baptist Church [in Plains, Ga.], which identifies itself as Southern Baptist — and has not hired a female pastor.
It’s merely hype to promote his latest views, and another chance for him to perpetuate a caricature of what Southern Baptists believe and practice using willing media to aid him.
The guy does this every year when they won’t consider anything he wants. Kick the bum out and keep on the fundamentalist straight and narrow.