Jimmy Carter Breaks with Southern Baptist Convention
Former president Jimmy Carter broke with the Southern Baptist Convention on this day, ending a life-long relationship, because of their differences over a range of social and political issues.
Jimmy Carter was a lifelong Baptist and arguably the most sincerely religious president in modern times. When he ran for president in 1976, he announced that he was “born again” and was elected in part because of support from evangelical Protestants, particularly in the South.
He soon came into conflict with evangelical Christians because of his support for abortion rights (although he personally opposed abortion) and opposition to prayer in public schools. He was not reelected in 1980, in part because evangelical Christians abandoned him in favor of Republican Ronald Reagan.
Read Jimmy Carter on matters of faith: Jimmy Carter, Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis (2006)
Learn more at the Carter Center: http://www.cartercenter.org/index.html
Read about the history of conflict over religion in American history: Steven Waldman, Sacred Liberty: America’s Long, Bloody, and Ongoing Struggle for Religious Freedom (2019)