Sunday, April 27, 2008
Opinion, Politics

Jimmy Carter’s Tower of Babel

When brought into the sphere of politics, religion is not Jacob’s ladder, a connection with Heaven; it is instead the Tower of Babel, man’s arrogance made manifest in material form

A meeting of officials of the New Baptist Covenant at the Carter Center on March 12.
CREDIT: The New Baptist Covenant
By Stephanie Ramage

Last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Bush administration warned former President Jimmy Carter against journeying to the West Bank to talk with Hamas.

The complaint against Carter’s recent visit is that, by engaging Hamas, he undermined the sitting president’s policy of isolating Hamas. President George W. Bush has said unequivocally that a “viable, contiguous, sovereign and independent” Palestine is a must for peace with Israel, but a terrorist organization like Hamas is not part of the blueprint for a two-state solution. Yet, Carter has, in essence, said much the same thing, at least about Palestine. So Bush and Carter decrying one another is nothing more than turf-guarding.

Carter taking sightseeing tours hosted by anti-American groups like Hamas should really be of no concern to us. What should concern us is Carter’s full-fledged, undisguised use of the Carter Center, a recipient of federal funding, as a venue for Baptist revivals that he hosts. What should concern us about Carter’s foreign affairs is that Christian doctrine takes a self-promoting approach to problem-solving in Israel, a country that Carter refers to as “the Holy Land” without batting an eye.

However, given Bush’s heavy reliance on faith-based programs to do benevolent work at home and abroad, and his continued political dependence on the religious right, there isn’t much that Bush can say about Carter’s use of federal funds—more than $1.7 million in 2006 alone, according to listed assets in the Center’s latest financial report—to pursue evangelical objectives. In fact, given the growing accommodation for religion throughout American politics, among Republicans and Democrats, there isn’t much any politician can say about it.

And so it has fallen to me. There are many others who would do a much better job, but as the philosopher Epictetus said, “Because I am not Socrates, should I be quiet?” Obviously, no, I should not.

For about a year—ever since I attended its inaugural get-together at the Carter Center—the New Baptist Covenant, Carter’s latest project, has sent me a flurry of press releases, each one more astounding than the last in terms of the religious declarations espoused by high-profile politicos. Most of the New Baptist Covenant’s gatherings have been at the Carter Center. They include prayers, preaching and hymn singing—things that would result in a cessation of public funding for public schools or civic organizations. The Center can be rented for events, of course, but when asked whether the Covenant rents the Center, a Covenant/Mercer University staffer (Carter founded the Covenant with Mercer officials) told me that the meetings are ad hoc gatherings.

To ascertain its global religious aims, consider these gems:

“The preeminent commitment of the New Baptist Covenant should always be winning souls to Christ—by word and example—locally and globally. This evangelistic effort should be persistent and well coordinated.”—Suggested objectives listed in a New Baptist Covenant press release dated March 19, 2008.

“Seek domestic and foreign mission projects suitable for individuals, such as providing health and dental care, immunizing the poor, building churches, and giving requested aid to missionary families.”—Suggested objectives, press release, March 19, 2008.

“Before [Bill] Clinton [spoke], Charles Adams, the pastor of Hartford Baptist Church in Detroit, preached about setting the captive free, challenging Baptists to seize freedom in Christ for the good of the world. There are ‘Baptists in our churches that have not yet learned that to be Baptist is to be free in Christ,’ he said. ‘Let us say, ‘Give me Jesus and a place to stand, and we will change the world!’”—Reported by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in its coverage of the “Celebration of the New Baptist Covenant” at the Georgia World Congress Center, Jan. 30-Feb. 1, at which former President Bill Clinton spoke.

Epictetus, the philosopher I mentioned earlier, was probably best-known for his “Discourses,” which was translated most notably by Elizabeth Carter, the daughter of an Anglican minister  in the 18th century. Consequently, much of Epictetus’ doctrine took on an overly Christian tone. More recent scholars have retranslated it and unearthed an Epictetus whose concept of God fits more closely with that of Spinoza, the 17th-century Dutch—and originally Jewish—philosopher widely credited with sparking the European Enlightenment with his philosophy of individual freedom, a philosophy that formed the foundation of the American Constitution.

God, to Spinoza, was a ubiquitous force that existed regardless of religion, something a bit like Epictetus’ “volition,” the word that University of California-Berkeley scholar A.A. Long has chosen to use for what Epictetus describes as one’s essential self. Only in our essential selves will we find the power to choose a moral course regardless of external factors. God, in so many words, is within us. Epictetus would say that religion is an “indifferent” entity that can be used for good or bad.

It is this philosophy, one that does not label Israelis or Palestinians good or bad, and one that recognizes the human ability to choose morality regardless of some overarching dogmatic tradition, which is needed in securing peace in the region. This approach has never been fostered by Americans. On his earliest trip to Israel, in 1973, Jimmy Carter, who was at that time governor of Georgia, chided Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir for the secularism of her country.

The fact that such attitudes not only still exist today but are making an unprecedented comeback and even taking highly visible root in the Democratic Party is bizarre to me. All of this reveals religion’s misuse not as a conduit for the peace of God, but as a man-made hierarchy with the aim of acquiring political power for personal purposes. When brought into the sphere of politics, religion is not Jacob’s ladder, a connection with Heaven; it is instead the Tower of Babel, man’s arrogance made manifest. SP

Stephanie Ramage is news editor of The Sunday Paper.

CORRECTION: The print version of this story erroneously titled Golda Meir as president of Israel. She was prime minister. I regret the error.