Baptists worldwide congratulate Carter on Nobel, but SBC is silent

December 30, 2002

Baptists worldwide congratulate Carter on Nobel, but SBC is silent
___By Robert Marus
___ABP Washington Bureau
___WASHINGTON (ABP)--Former President Jimmy Carter, the second U.S. Baptist ever to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, accepted the award Dec. 10 to the cheers of international Baptists and with a warning about U.S. foreign policy.
___Carter received the honor in Oslo, Norway, from a five-member Norwegian committee. Committee members said the award was given in recognition of Carter's effort to broker the 1978 Camp David Accords, which ended hostilities between Israel and Egypt, as well as his work on issues of human rights, poverty and justice in the U.S. and abroad since leaving the presidency in 1981.
___Another Baptist from Georgia, Martin Luther King Jr., won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 f

JIMMY CARTER holds the symbols of the Nobel Prize awarded to him Dec. 10 in Oslo, Norway.

or his efforts to end legalized segregation in the South through non-violent means.
___In his acceptance speech, Carter cited his faith to describe his principles of non-violence.
___"The unchanging principles of life predate modern times," Carter said. "I worship Jesus Christ, whom we Christians consider to be the Prince of Peace. As a Jew, he taught us to cross religious boundaries, in service and in love. He repeatedly reached out and embraced Roman conquerors, other Gentiles, and even the more despised Samaritans."
___In comments many observers viewed as veiled warnings against the U.S. entering into a "pre-emptive" war against Iraq, Carter said all war is "evil," even when it is necessary.
___"In order for us human beings to commit ourselves personally to the inhumanity of war, we find it necessary first to dehumanize our opponents, which is in itself a violation of the beliefs of all religions," Carter said. "Once we characterize our adversaries as beyond the scope of God's mercy and grace, their lives lose all value."
___While not directly criticizing the Bush administration, Carter voiced support of several foreign-policy objectives--such as international treaties on global warming and the new International Criminal Court--that are in direct opposition to Bush policies.
___Several Baptist leaders in other countries sent congratulations for Carter to the Baptist World Alliance, a Virginia-based umbrella group for Baptist bodies around the globe. "All of them mentioned his strong Christian witness," reported BWA General Secretary Denton Lotz, "and how it contributed to their witness overseas in a minority setting where Baptists are often unknown or suffering persecution.î
___Back home, however, Carter's award received little or no attention from the Southern Baptist Convention.
___Richard Land, head of the SBC's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, was contacted for comment but did not respond by press time.
___Carter, a member of Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Ga., was a longtime Southern Baptist but now identifies primarily with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a moderate splinter group of the Southern Baptist Convention.
___He did draw commendation from William Neal, editor of The Christian Index, the oldest Baptist newspaper in the country, a paper owned by the Georgia Baptist Convention.
___"The Sunday School teacher from Plains is greatly deserving of this honor in light of his many efforts over a long period of time to promote peace throughout the world," Neal wrote when the award was announced in October. "It is refreshing to see the secular media talk about how Christianity has greatly influenced Carter's position as a peacemaker."
___But SBC leaders were silent on the award, and the SBC's Baptist Press never mentioned it. Baptist Press frequently runs news stories and opinion pieces related to Republican causes, including recurring commendations of Republican politicians and policies by Land.
___The only reference in Baptist Press to Carter winning the prize came from columnist Kelly Boggs who commented in a column on liberals' "whining" that "If Bill Clinton can twice be elected president and Jimmy Carter can win the Nobel Peace Prize, anything is possible."
___Moderate Baptist ethicist Robert Parham called the lack of attention from Southern Baptist leaders to Carter's accomplishment a "shameful but expected failure." Parham, executive director of the Nashville-based Baptist Center for Ethics, drew a parallel between the silence of conservative SBC leaders about Carter's accomplishment and the SBC's silence in 1964 about King's award.
___"Carter is a prophet without honor among the Southern Baptist spiritual and genetic offspring of those who refused to honor another Baptist Nobel Peace laureate," Parham wrote in a column for BCE's online publication.
___Parham said leaders were silent in both cases because both Carter and King "took Jesus too literally" in his teachings about justice and peace issues.
___"Both men shared family secrets about Baptists in the United States," Parham said. King spoke about the racism that pervaded Southern Baptist churches in the 1960s, he said, and Carter spoke about the disharmony that has rocked the SBC for more than 20 years.
___Carter said he will donate the $1 million award that accompanies the Nobel Peace Prize to the Carter Center, an Atlanta-based charity he founded that works to alleviate poverty and advance human rights and democracy around the world.
___

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