It's important to note that no President before Jimmy Carter made a big deal about their religion, and all Presidents after have.

mralstoner wrote:Alas, the DUMBASS moderator went and merged my post.

mralstoner wrote:Go figure.

Fallible wrote:

Imagination Theory wrote:You aren't allowed to post duplicate posts from other websites either. That's a rule here.

If it were, GreatestIAm would be long gone.

Clive Durdle wrote:

It's important to note that no President before Jimmy Carter made a big deal about their religion, and all Presidents after have.

Jimmy didn't either! This is a right wing meme, encouraged by Reagan and Thatcher.

In October 1976, just prior to Jimmy Carter’s election as president, Newsweek had christened 1976 the “Year of the Evangelical.” Carter’s candidacy had introduced many Americans to the term evangelical, and his articulation of the themes of progressive evangelicalism—care for the poor, concern for human rights, and an aversion to military conflict—brought many evangelicals into the arena of politics, some of them for the first time. Nearly half of evangelical voters in 1976 favored Carter, which represented a significant increase from the showing of Democratic candidates in years past; white evangelicals, following the lead of Billy Graham and others, had generally tilted Republican in the postwar era.

FOR myself and for our Nation, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land. In this outward and physical ceremony we attest once again to the inner and spiritual strength of our Nation. As my high school teacher, Miss Julia Coleman, used to say: "We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles." Here before me is the Bible used in the inauguration of our first President, in 1789, and I have just taken the oath of office on the Bible my mother gave me a few years ago, opened to a timeless admonition from the ancient prophet Micah: "He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." (Micah 6:8)

JVRaines wrote:

Clive Durdle wrote:

It's important to note that no President before Jimmy Carter made a big deal about their religion, and all Presidents after have.

Jimmy didn't either! This is a right wing meme, encouraged by Reagan and Thatcher.

From Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter:

In October 1976, just prior to Jimmy Carter’s election as president, Newsweek had christened 1976 the “Year of the Evangelical.” Carter’s candidacy had introduced many Americans to the term evangelical, and his articulation of the themes of progressive evangelicalism—care for the poor, concern for human rights, and an aversion to military conflict—brought many evangelicals into the arena of politics, some of them for the first time. Nearly half of evangelical voters in 1976 favored Carter, which represented a significant increase from the showing of Democratic candidates in years past; white evangelicals, following the lead of Billy Graham and others, had generally tilted Republican in the postwar era.

The opening of Carter's Inaugural Address:

FOR myself and for our Nation, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land. In this outward and physical ceremony we attest once again to the inner and spiritual strength of our Nation. As my high school teacher, Miss Julia Coleman, used to say: "We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles." Here before me is the Bible used in the inauguration of our first President, in 1789, and I have just taken the oath of office on the Bible my mother gave me a few years ago, opened to a timeless admonition from the ancient prophet Micah: "He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." (Micah 6:8)

Clive Durdle wrote:I am perfectly aware he was an evangelical. But he was of the old guard, strictly separating the state and religion. I am sorry, his way of being xian was utterly different to the moral majority, Tea party and that US Attorney General.

I am surprised sceptical people have not understood how different these perspectives are. Can you imagine modern "xians" with their megachurches, belief in end times and ups with big coal and oil going with stewardship and justice ideas?

There were and are huge differences in how people lived their beliefs.