When Plains Baptist Church voted overwhelmingly in the 1950s to bar Blacks and “racial agitators” from membership, Jimmy Carter and a handful of his family members

Baptist leaders are remembering Jimmy Carter as an example of faithfulness, compassion and justice and advocate for religious liberty.

Jimmy Carter was an evangelical. A liberal evangelical. A liberal evangelical in the age before the Christian Right supported a conservative revolution that swept Republican Ronald Reagan into power.

Jimmy Carter, a progressive Baptist, balanced faith with politics, advocating for church-state separation while evolving on social issues, shaping evangelical roles in U.S. public life.

A state funeral for the 39th president on Thursday will bring together all five living presidents and feature a eulogy from President Biden.

As the world pays homage to former President Jimmy Carter, some people overlook a primary source of inspiration for his politics: his distinctive brand of White evangelical Christianity, which remains hidden from most Americans.

Jimmy Carter, the 39th U.S. President, is being honored with the pageantry of a state funeral in the nation’s capital. He will later be honored a second service and burial in his tiny Georgia hometown that launched a Depression-era farm boy to the world stage.

Lesser known, and particularly relevant for American politics today, is our 39th president’s commitment to the Baptist value of religious liberty. The United States’ most religious president in recent memory was also the most committed to the separation of church and state.

Jimmy Carter, who died Dec. 29 at the age of 100, spent his life intertwined with America’s and the world’s enduring legacy of slavery.

Jimmy Carter did not shy away from his faith, and he was genuine about it. His religious beliefs guided him during and after his presidency.

Rev. Tony Lowden will read a prayer Thursday in Washington and then preside over the private, final service for President Jimmy Carter in Plains.