Reply #4: I Think More Was Said By The Media Than By Carter

[DemocratSinceBirth]

I think more was said about Jimmy Carter's "born again" Christianity than Jimmy Carter said himself. In fact the whole notion of being "born again" was viewed as being somewhat exotic. But then it became somehow de rigeur that not only must a president be a Christian but he must be a "born again" Christian. I remember when Bush Pere who was Episcopalian said he was "born again" to appease the Christian right. To my knowledge Episcopalians baptize at birth so the "born again" experience is not part of their doctrine.


As for personal faith I spent a decent part of my formative years in a fundamentalist church. Maybe I heard what I wanted to hear but I took away the affirming parts of the Bible; love and honor your parents. love your enemies, look out for the weak, just be a kind person et cetera.

I was having a conversation with a principal of a fundamentalist Christian school this morning. It was a great conversation. He's a nice guy and a brave guy. We were talking about the area where I grew up and how it changed and he was telling me how he gave chase to a purse snatcher.(I grew up in Deltona . Deltona was the site of the infamous X BOX killings. Some lunatic and his "posse" broke into a home and killed all the occupants to recover an X BOX. I told him when we were teenagers in the 70's we liked to smoke pot, get drunk, and get laid* but we weren't violent.) A man knocked down a elderly woman and ran off with her purse and he tried to chase him. It says something good and decent about the man who gave chase. We and even he in retrospect can question how wise it was. We were talking about "Christian rock" I said I didn't like it because it diminishes Christianity and rock.That's how I feel about the mixture of Christianity or any religion and politics.

We then touched on everything from Obama to gay marriage to Reverend Warren. All you need to know is that he thinks Reverend Warren is an apostate and too liberal.I didn't tell him that while I consider myself a Christian and do try to be Christ like though I fail frequently I could never be a fundamentalist.It's not that I have this great desire to go out and sin. I told him as we get older (and I'm approaching my fifth decade of life) we lose the physical capacity to sin. It's hard to get drunk, chase women, raise Hell, and wake up feeling fine the next morning when you reach a certain age. I just don't have a desire to consign entire groups of people to eternal damnation or judge people.

*I didn't use that word.