Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis

Even at his most irate, Jimmy Carter projects cool, communicating with a poise that commands attention while gently signaling to opponents that they better do their homework before mounting any sort of debate. Perhaps that's why the former president, Nobel Peace Prize-winner, and bestselling author ranks as one of the planet's most respected voices in the areas of human rights, diplomacy, and good government. And when a clearly agitated Carter suggests America is on a slippery slope, globally speaking, as he does throughout Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis , it's wise to pay heed even if the book's overriding Christian perspective may trip cautionary bells in secular readers. More a set of loosely connected essays than a single, precise argument, Our Endangered Values outlines Carter's worldview while pondering what he posits are key problems looming in the 21st century. Thematic touchstones such as the war, environmental negligence, civil liberties, the rich-poor divide, and the separation of church and state form the book's backbone, with Carter filtering each through the prism of his own vast experience. He doesn't much like what he sees. Though much of the data Carter presents to support his arguments is familiar, it's worth repeating that "the rate of firearm homicides in the United States is nineteen times higher than that of 35 other high-income countries combined." That "In addition to imprisonment, the United States of America stands almost alone in the world in our fascination with the death penalty, and our few remaining companions are regimes with a lack of respect for basic human rights." That when it comes to sharing the wealth with poor nations "Americans are the stingiest of all industrialized nations. We allow about one-thirtieth as much as is commonly believed [or] sixteen cents out of each $100 of the gross national income." America: land of the free, home of the brave? Try global bully with a bad attitude and reckless sense of entitlement. Carter spends significant time contextualizing his own spirituality, as if to underscore the urgency of his message that fundamentalism in any form is bad, especially when it encroaches on government. Indeed, Carter persuasively links fundamentalism to harmful policy, the subjugation of women, general xenophobia, and a host of other ills occurring all around him. And while George W. Bush in particular and the current administration in general take fewer clips on the chin than might be expected, Carter's arguments for common-sense change are deeply resonant nonetheless. --Kim Hughes From Publishers Weekly After several books on spirituality and homespun values (most recently Sharing Good Times ), President Carter turns his attention to the political arena. He is gravely concerned by recent trends in conservatism, many of which, he argues, stem from the religious right's openly political agenda. Criticizing Christian fundamentalists for their "rigidity, domination and exclusion," he suggests that their open hostility toward a range of sinners (including homosexuals and the federal judiciary) runs counter to America's legacy of democratic freedom. Carter speaks eloquently of how his own faith has shaped his moral vision and of how he has struggled to reconcile his own values with the Southern Baptist church's transformation under increasingly conservative leadership. He also makes resonant connections between religion and political activism, as when he points out that the Lord's Prayer is a call for "an end to political and economic injustice within worldly regimes." Too much of the book, however, is a scattershot catalogue of standard liberal gripes against the current administration. Throwing in everything from human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib to global warming, Carter spreads himself too thin over talking points that have already been covered extensively. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist Since Carter was defeated in the presidential election of 1980 by Ronald Reagan, he has received great praise for his efforts to alleviate domestic poverty, his campaigns for human rights and free elections, and his efforts at mediation in several foreign "hot spots." But Carter has also been condemned as a naive, presumptuous meddler who frequently does more harm than good. This book contains ample ammunition for both views. Carter is at his best (and least divisive) when he describes his personal religious beliefs and commitment; however, when he delves into our political and cutural divide, he seems likely to add fuel to the fire. Although his attacks on some of the more extreme positions of the religious Right may be warranted, his assertion that Christian fundamentalists are uniformly rigid, domineering, and exclusivist paints with a broad brush. His concern over the doctrine of "pre-emptive" war is well argued, but his consistent criticism of Bush foreign policy drips with the partisanship he claims to decry. Carter may be a kind, decent, even admirable man, but this book preaches to the choir and will not change many minds; expect demand, however. Jay Freeman Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Jimmy Carter was born in Plains, Georgia, and served as thirty-ninth President of the United States. He and his wife, Rosalynn, founded The Carter Center, a nonprofit organization that prevents and resolves conflicts, enhances freedom and democracy, and improves health around the world. He is the author of numerous books, including Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, An Hour Before Daylight and Our Endangered Values . He received a "Best Spoken Word" Grammy Award for his recording of Our Endangered Values . All of President Carter's proceeds from this series will go to the Maranatha Baptist Church of Plains, Georgia. From The Washington Post Evangelical Christians in this country are familiar with the jeremiad, a sermon rousing the devout to renewed effort by highlighting how far they have wandered from the true and only faith. These days, jeremiads invariably attribute the abysmal crisis in which America allegedly finds itself to liberals and secular humanists. Teenage pregnancy, abortion, drug addiction, homosexuality -- these, we are told, are indications of our fallen state, the product of our mistaken belief that we can get by without the teachings of a just God. Jimmy Carter's natural affinity is with the jeremiad. But Our Endangered Values, the prolific ex-president's latest book, finds fault not with secular humanists but with Christians, particularly those of the fundamentalist persuasion. Huge gaps between rich and poor, disrespect for human rights, cruel and unusual treatment of prisoners, a despoiled environment and a dangerous foreign policy -- these, for him, are the true indications of how far we have fallen. We used to believe that America stood as a moral beacon to the world. Because of the influence wielded by fundamentalists over our policies, Carter argues, we no longer can. Carter offers an unusual combination: a man of faith and a man of power. His presidency was marked both by his prophetic witness on behalf of humane values and by his often incomprehensible amateurism in campaigning and governing. No wonder, then, that the best parts of Our Endangered Values deal with his private faith and the worst with his analysis of public policy. To understand Carter's beliefs, it is important to know something about America's largest Protestant denomination, the Baptists. Baptists have long insisted on the separation of church and state, distrusted religious hierarchies and respected the autonomy of local congregations. The 2000 "Baptist Faith and Message" statement, according to Carter, changed all that; with it, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) created a church that would directly involve itself in politics, made half its members (the female half) subservient and, in Carter's devastating words, brought about the "substitution of Southern Baptist leaders for Jesus as the interpreters of biblical Scripture." Carter may have left the SBC in protest, but he, far more than the ostensible leaders of the denomination, represents the true spirit of Baptist religious liberty. As president, Carter prayed, and prayed often -- not to ask divine blessing for actions he was about to take but because any action he took would have consequences unknown to him or any other human being. His personal convictions led him to oppose both abortion and the death penalty, but his political duty commanded obedience to the decisions of the Supreme Court. Fundamentalism, Carter writes, has three attributes: "rigidity, domination, and exclusion." As a president and as a Christian, Carter avoided all three. Now that many of the Christian fundamentalists with whom Carter so strongly disagrees find themselves being courted by the White House (even if their advice is frequently ignored), Carter's criticism of their understanding of religion in politics is as welcome as it is refreshing. Still, there are times when the Jesus talk gets laid on a bit too thick. It is true that fundamentalist Christians have retrograde views about women, but to write in response that "Jesus Christ was the greatest liberator of women" downplays the role that Christianity played for centuries in assigning women to second-class status. Nor is it always an effective tactic to criticize biblical literalists by citing the Bible against them, as Carter does on behalf of the poor; after all, the Bible so frequently contradicts itself. Sometimes, in other words, you need a nonreligious argument to confront the theocrats among us. Carter is perfectly aware of this, and when he turns to questions involving the environment or counterterrorism, his wonkish side comes to the fore. Alas, Carter's voice without prophetic urgency is more obligatory than compelling. It is true that nuclear proliferation is a great danger and that the United States is well-served by a strong United Nations, but Carter's breathless rush through the damage wrecked by foreign policy unilateralism offers little that is new and much that is labored. His deep religious convictions ought especially to inform his policy discussions on the subject of torture of detainees held abroad. Yet here his prose, too vague to be analytic, is also too detached to be prophetic. Prophecy demands holding people who do bad things responsible for their actions. Yet while Carter clearly does not like what Republicans are doing, President George W. Bush does not appear in his book. Neoconservatives do: Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) is mentioned a couple of times, and Pat Robertson gets his share of attention. Probably out of respect for the office he once held, Carter is reluctant to point the finger of blame at the man who holds it now. One can admire him for his restraint even while lamenting the dispassion that results. Fundamentalism has gotten America into a mess, but religion can once again help the country finds its soul. The Republican version of Jimmy Carter, former Missouri senator John Danforth, started an important national discussion when he criticized right-wing extremists in his party for their certainty that God was on their side. By adding his own voice to the discussion, Carter reminds us of a time when religion was tied to such virtues as humility and to such practices as soul-searching. He may not have been one of our best presidents, but he is undoubtedly one of our finest human beings. Reviewed by Alan Wolfe Copyright 2005, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved. Read more