Former president Jimmy Carter, the 39th commander-in-chief of the United States, passed away at the age of 100. As with all presidents since 1893, the funeral was held at the Washington National Cathedral. The plans for a presidential funeral are made in great detail years before the president’s death, including the service order, speakers, scriptures, and songs to be sung. President Carter was hailed as a Christian leader who was not shy about his Christian faith and referenced it in key political moments. Throughout his adult life, Carter demonstrated a personal commitment to evangelization by publicly witnessing his faith, participating in missions, and, most famously, teaching Sunday school for nearly four decades on most Sundays, year in and year out, at his hometown Baptist church in Plains, Ga. Like all of us, he was not perfect. He was not above compromising the truths of his faith to reach an agreement with non-believers.
On his most celebrated foreign policy achievement, he praised religions coming together for a common goal: peace. Before reaching the 1978 peace deal between Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin, Carter managed months of intense preparation, high-stakes negotiations at Camp David, and a field trip to the Gettysburg battlefield to demonstrate the consequences of war.
“We finally got an agreement because we all shared faith in the same God,” Carter told biographer Jonathan Alter as he traced his Christianity, Begin’s Judaism, and Sadat’s Islam to their common ancestor in each religion’s sacred texts. We all considered ourselves the sons of Abraham.”
In light of the good things President Carter accomplished in this case, he failed to stand firm in his faith in Jesus Christ. If people have a sense of “god” and are in the lineage of Abraham, and do good things in their life, without Christ as Savior, they are lost. Sadly, over 70% of born-again “Christians” do not believe that Christ is the only way to God. In his latest research, George Barna found that less than 1% of self-identified Christians know what it means to be a Christian.
President Carter met Garth Brooks through his work with Habitat for Humanity. They became friends. He asked Garth and Trisha Yearwood to sing John Lennon’s 1971 homage to peace, “Imagine,” at his wife Rosalyn’s funeral and now again at his own funeral. Brooks played the song’s iconic melody on an acoustic guitar, singing, “Imagine there’s no heaven. It’s easy if you try. No hell below us. Above us, only sky,” The second verse: “Imagine there’s no countries It isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, And no religion too. Imagine all the people Living life in peace.”
Many were swooning over the song because of its beautiful melody. Many loved the idea of singing for a magical place called Utopia, while others were infuriated. Why would a president who was a Christian embrace a song that called to mind images of blasphemy? Asking the listener to think about a world where nobody believes in heaven or hell; at first, religious minds should have been appalled. Did John Lennon knowingly write the song Imagine to blaspheme Christ and Christianity while promoting his political agendas?
In Geoffrey Giuliano’s work Lennon In America, John Lennon claimed that “Imagine is…An anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, anti-capitalist song, but because it’s sugar-coated, it’s accepted.”
He also said, “Now I understand what you have to do. Put your political message across with a little honey. This is what we do… to try to change the apathy of young people.”
Christians are commanded to “Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, strength, mind and soul.” With the Christian religion, there is no excuse ever to deny the truth of God and Jesus, the Savior of all humanity. We must never compromise the truth of the Scriptures to gain acceptance with others. There is one road to God, and that is Jesus Christ, our Savior. Period.
“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
How can we keep the faith when so many churches and “Christians” have grown cold to the importance of knowing and living out our faith in Christ daily, moment by moment? Our culture has become godless, making it extremely difficult to navigate ourselves when the truth of God has been substituted with a truth that is whatever someone wants it to be. This is why it is critical for us to know the truth of Scripture so we will not stumble. We have to be able to discern between what is truth and what is not. Satan, the deceiver, is alive and well. His purpose is to confound and confuse our minds. His goal is to disrupt and end our faith in Jesus Christ. He does this by bringing false teachers and counterfeit Christians into our lives. Unless we know the truth of God from the Bible, we will stumble.
How should we, as Christians, interact with others to bring glory to God and draw others closer to Him?
1. Learn the truth of the Scriptures. Study the Christian worldview so you will be prepared to give the reason for the hope you have in Christ.
2. Live out that truth in everyday life as you love and serve others. Be patient and encouraging to others.
3. Listen to others. Everyone has a story as to why they believe or reject Christ. Listen to their story without judging them. If they do not believe, ask them why.. 4. Love others unconditionally, whether they are believers or not.
5. Lead others, through the work of the Holy Spirit, to a personal relationship with Jesus.