Our Endangered Values

by Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter’s latest book is a quick read and makes a strong case against not only the administration of George W. Bush, but also the fundamentalist attitudes of the Christian Right. If anyone has the standing to make this case it is Carter, the most genuinely religious President of the modern era, who knows the church inside and out. I was surprised to learn in this book that Carter broke with Southern Baptist Convention over their fundamentalism, but I respect him for that. While the book relies too heavily, for my taste, on Carter’s personal Christianity and his knowledge of scripture, it does an excellent job of laying out the significant social issues that are fracturing our country and begins to suggest how Democrats can frame their positions as we begin to try to save the nation from the disastrous policies of the Republicans. He talks here about abortion, the death penalty, the separation of church and state, “the sins of divorce and homosexuality,” the role of women, foreign policy, terrorism and preemptive war, the environment, and poverty.