Carter's "Our Endangered Values"

Having finished Jimmy Carter's new book, Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis, I thought I'd offer my two cents worth of opinion.

The book, which is short and an easy read, is essentially a loosely connected selection of essays, some dealing mainly with divisions among Christian groups on interpreting Christ's message in the modern world, and some dealing mainly with topical domestic and foreign policy differences between the Bush administration and earlier administrations. The unifying theme, if there is one, is that all the essays criticize the positions taken by what he calls “fundamentalists,” whether they be of the religious sort or the ideological sort.

Although he never actually defines the term “fundamentalists,” he does identify a set of traits he believes common to them all. Paraphrasing him, these are:

• They are usually led by authoritarian males who consider themselves to be superior to others and have an overwhelming commitment to subjugate women.

• They tend to believe that the past is better then the present.

• They are convinced that they are right and that all who contradict them are ignorant, wrong, and possibly evil.

• They are militant in fighting against challenges to their beliefs, even to the point of physical abuse against those who interfere with their agenda.

• They tend to isolate themselves, to demagogue emotional issues, and to view change, cooperation, negotiation, and other efforts at conflict resolution as signs of weakness.

It's pretty obvious who he puts in the fundamentalist's camp. On the religious side are the modern leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention (his own church) and the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells of the Christian movement. On the political side are essentially the Bush administration and many of the crazier Senators and Congressmen and others who blindly support Bush. He tries to avoid Republican v. Democrat contrasts in order to claim the book is non-partisan, but the contrasts are pretty clearly there, even if the party labels are not.

The quality of his writing is uneven. Some chapters strike me as exceedingly well-written, while others seem strained, at best.

On the whole, however, I found I agreed with most of what he had to say. It seems to me his writing is convincing enough that it would be difficult for any fair minded person not to agree. For that reason, I plan to give a copy to some of my friends on the other side of the political spectrum. Maybe it will change a mind or two.