Our Endangered Values: A Book Review

Jimmy Carter, Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005).


A friend lent me this book and I’m grateful. Over the years my views of Jimmy Carter have softened. When he was President, he seemed to me to be totally overwhelmed and clueless. I now know that wasn’t always the case, but Carter is famous for his micromanagement techniques that just don’t work when you’re the man in charge of an entire nation. I didn’t vote for him in either ‘76 or ‘80 (in ‘80, on the ride with John Anderson,I left the Republican party for good). But this ain’t about me. After Carter lost the Presidency in 1980, he’s gone on to become the best ex-president the nation has known and has gained my admiration.

In Our Endangered Values, Jimmy Carter attempts to link his Christian faith with his political beliefs. From my reading, he sees a two prong attack on traditional American beliefs: the rise of religious fundamentalism and the damage being done by our current President and his polices. In defending these values, he writes with passion.

Carter’s first concern is that our values are being attacked theologically. He rightfully points out that fundamentalism is a problem in many religions other than Christianity (you have Jewish, Islamic, Hindu and even Mormon fundamentalism). Although he doesn’t cite the source for his knowledge on fundamentalism, but the work of Martin Marty at the University of Chicago came to mind. However, Carter is interested in Christian fundamentalism and especially the role conservatives have played in the take-over of the Southern Baptist Convention. Pointing out how they have destroyed historic Baptist traditions, such as the role of the laity, he quotes one of the Southern Baptist’s most known conservative leaders, W. A. Criswell, who said: ‘Lay leadership of the church is unbiblical when it weakens the pastor’s authority as ruler of the church.” (page 42) As an outsider, I agree with Carter that there seems to be a dramatic shift going on in Baptist doctrine with the power moving into the hands of the clergy; however, I wonder if Criswell’s quote was taken out of context.

Although Carter doesn’t like what’s going on in his denomination, he also concerned with how conservative Christianity gets played out in the political arena. Here he seems to be a bit fuzzy as he lumps together Christian fundamentalism with those of a premillennium, pretribulation rapture, dispensationalist world view. This view of Scripture came into the mainstream in America with the publication of the Scofield Reference Bible and made more popular with the 70s bestseller The Late Great Planet Earth and more recently with the fictional Left Behind Series. I agree with Carter that such a view of scripture is heresy and that basing our foreign policy on such a view can have disastrous results. But not all Biblical conservatives are in support of such a view of Scripture and, from my limited perspective; it’s been Biblical conservatives such as R. C. Sproul and the late John Gerstner who have been vocal and convincing about the danger of applying such a world view to scripture.

The second threat to our values addressed by Carter comes from the Republican Party and specifically from the Bush administration. Although this book was published two years ago, reading it I was reminded of Carter’s recent statement about Bush being America’s most disastrous President. This comment created a firestorm in the press. Carter attacks the Administration on it’s foreign policy, it’s handling of the war on terrorism and nuclear proliferation, it’s advocacy of preemptive war, it’s environmental policy and finally failing to address the increasing disparity between the rich and the poor. As a way to reach out beyond his followers, Carter continually draws upon Bush’s fellow Republicans to support his thesis that Bush’s policies are making the world increasingly unsafe while doing damage to the environment and not easing the suffering of the poorest of the poor.

It’s somewhat disappointing that Carter didn’t write more about how he tried to deal with his Christian beliefs as the leader of the free world. He admitted a few compromises he made, such as with the issues of abortion and the death penalty. Although he said he personally had problems with both, he found himself in the position of having to carry out the law of the land. When Carter did discuss how his role as President related to this faith, I felt he was trying to rationalize his decisions. Such discussions about the conflict of one’s public position and one’s faith need a greater discussion as we head into another election cycle.

Toward the end of this book, Carter cites statistics that show Americans thinking of themselves much more generous than we really are and points out how much of our foreign aid goes out with strings attached that often keeps it from helping those who need it most. His book is a call for America to both resist the threat of fundamentalism while playing a generous role in the world.

This is the type of a book that I’d recommend all presidential candidates write before running for office.

I could have used Jimmy's book for my Southern Reading Challenge, but didn't. I'm glad to see that several folks who read here are participating. I encourage all you who are taking the challenge to go over to Maggie's site and sign up and read about all the rules. (Murf is such a legalist as she has pointed out that I didn't post all the rules.) There's even a rumor there will be prizes!
For a list of Sage's book and movie reviews, click here.
Also check out Semicolon's Saturday Review of Books. (I really need to put this link in my sidebar!)