Working Past 70: Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter’s Third Third
Jimmy Carter, then age 72, comforts a patient with Guinea Worm wound. www.thecartercenter.org
12/31/2024 With the passing of President Carter a few days ago, at age 100, I will repost this article. Many news reports spoke of how his faith motivated and inspired his life. Read on for the details.
The original article:
A few years ago, I had the pleasure of visiting over lunch with the head of Planned Giving for the Carter Center, while we both attended a national meeting for philanthropic planning.
I shared my opinion that while I was not much impressed with Mr. Carter as a President, I greatly admired the example of his life and what he has accomplished in the more than forty years since he lost his reelection campaign to Ronald Reagan. His employee challenged my opinion, sharing a half dozen major achievements of Mr. Carter’s Presidency that seem to have been forgotten. While I do not remember the details of that conversation, he changed my view. Jimmy Carter did a good job as President, and I still believe he is the best former President, excepting George Washington, in the history of our country. President Carter is an inspiration and example of how to live purposefully in the third third of life.
Jimmy Carter was 56 years old when he reentered private life at Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in January 1981. In 1982 he founded the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia. The Center continues to work to resolve and prevent conflict, to support democracy and the rule of law, to fight disease, and to spread hope throughout the world. His employee told me that world leaders come to the Center, located in Atlanta, Georgia on a regular basis, away from the media glare of Washington, DC, to mee to prevent conflict, and that Mr. Carter (at that time just over age 90) continued to travel internationally one week a month to further the mission of the Center.
For more details on the extraordinary work of the Center, here is a link to the 2019 Annual Report.
https://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/news/annual_reports/annual-report-19.pdf
Jimmy Carter was raised as a third-generation Southern Baptist. He left that denomination in 2006, expressing that the denomination did not align with his Christian beliefs. He remains a member of a non-Southern Baptist Church, Maranatha Baptist in Plains, Georgia, where until recently he taught Sunday School and served as a Deacon (for those not familiar with Christian denominations, there are dozens of Baptist conventions in the United States).
Jimmy Carter has been influenced by the teaching of Clarence Jordan, a Baptist Bible scholar who founded Koinonia Farms, an interracial Christian farming commune in nearby Americus, Georgia, in 1942. Koinonia Farms is the parent ministry of Habitat for Humanity, where the Carters have volunteered for many years. President Carter’s Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan was Clarence Jordan’s nephew, and Jimmy Carter has written a Forward in a book of Dr. Jordan’s Bible translations.
Clarence Jordan believed that the racial segregation of the South in the 1940s was profoundly wrong according to the teachings of Jesus Christ. Also, in his book Sermon on the Mount, Jordan taught that the Beatitudes are a sequential step by step recipe of how to be fully born again, in an evangelical sense. Jimmy Carter’s life has been an example of implementing that idea. Clarence Jordan completed a cultural translation of the Bible, called The Cotton Patch Version. He translated not just the words, but reset the culture, to modern times. For example, the Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Romans is translated Letter to the Church in Washington, DC. President Carter reports he keeps a copy of Rev. Jordan’s translation on his desk.
My father, the Rev. George Kyncl, was also deeply impacted by Rev. Jordan. I grew up hearing of the Koinonia experiment, and the Cotton Patch Version. The radically practical aspect of Jesus’ teaching comes through with fresh impact. Here is a sample to help understand the spiritual teachings that have inspired President Carter.
Matthew Chapter 5. The Beatitudes, The Cotton Patch Version
When Jesus saw the large crowd, he went up the hill and sat down. His students gathered around him, and he began teaching them. This is what he said:
“The spiritually humble are God’s people, for they are citizens of his new order.
They who are deeply concerned are God’s people, for they will see their ideas become reality.
They who are gentle are his people, for they will be his partners across the land.
They who have an unsatisfied appetite for the right are God’s people, for they will be given plenty to chew on.
The generous are God’s people, for they will be treated generously.
Those whose motives are pure are God’s people, for they will have spiritual insight.
Men of peace and good will are God’s people, for they will be known throughout the land as his children.
Those who have endured much for what’s right are God’s people; they are citizens of his new order.
You all are God’s people when others call you names, and harass you and tell all kinds of false tales on you just because you follow me. Be cheerful and good-humored, because your spiritual advantage is great. For that’s the way they treated men of conscience in the past.
You all are the earth’s salt. But now if you just sit there and don’t salt, how will the world ever get salted? You’ll be so worthless that you’ll be thrown out and trampled on by the rest of society. You all are the world’s light; you are a city on a hill that cannot be hid. Have you ever heard o anybody turning on a light and then covering it up? Don’t you fix it so that it will light up the whole room? Well then, since you are God’s light which he has turned on, go ahead and shine so clearly that when your conduct is observed it will plainly be the work of your spiritual Father.”
Some achievements of Jimmy Carter’s third third of life:
Support of democracy and fair elections worldwide
Near eradication of several parasitic diseases. When the Carter Center began its attempt to eradicate the horrific Guinea parasite there were an estimated 3.5 million cases a year. In 2019 there were 29. If they can get have one full year with none, it will be gone.
Ongoing conflict prevention and resolution among world leaders
Sunday School teacher and Deacon
Day to day racial reconciliation in his everyday life
Authored over 30 books
Married to Rosalyn Carter for 70 plus years
Homeownership for the disadvantaged through Habitat for Humanity.
President Carter has truly been “salt and light.”
What about you and me? While we do not have the platform of being the longest-lived former President of the United States, we can have an impact where we are.
Who could you help today? Generosity can be a simple as making an extra bowl of homemade soup to share with an elderly neighbor. There seems to be a Habitat for Humanity project nearly everywhere in the United States, where we can volunteer. We can teach Sunday School, lead in Scouting, or help in a classroom. We can reach out and apologize to someone we may have offended and bring a bit of peace to our world. We can volunteer in the next election, or volunteer to serve on a committee in our town government.
Russ Kyncl is the author of Visions to Do Good: The Personal Philanthropy of Benjamin Franklin, available on Amazon.com, and a financial planner focusing on issues of the Third Third of life. He may be reached at www.strategicexit.com.
