By Bob Allen
Leaders of American Baptist Churches USA joined the larger Baptist family Aug. 25 in the United States and globally in prayer for former President Jimmy Carter and his family after the lifelong Baptist’s recent diagnosis with cancer.
ABC General Secretary Roy Medley said news of Carter’s cancer “has taken us all by surprise.”
“As fellow Christians, we know that even in these trying circumstances his faith in Christ is a bedrock of hope and peace to him,” Medley said. “His grace and even humor in announcing the medical findings, as well as his continuing commitment to those causes which are deeply rooted in his faith continue to inspire us in service to Christ and the world.”
Aidsand Wright-Riggins, executive director of American Baptist Home Mission Societies and an officer on the board of the New Baptist Covenant convened by Carter in 2007, described Carter as “Goodwill Baptist” and “Red Letter Baptist.”
“He is more concerned about what pulls us together as Baptists and what pushes us out in service and ministry in the world than he is about what divides us,” Wright-Riggins said. “He focuses most on the declarative message of Jesus, which some Bibles publish in red ink, rather than on secondary theological reflections.”
“I believe that it was in this spirit that he initiated the New Baptist Covenant movement,” he continued. “He prepared a table and invited all Baptists to it while others drew circles and excluded others from joining in.”
Carter, 90, was a Southern Baptist layman for most of his adult life, serving on the now-defunct Brotherhood Commission, before distancing himself from the Southern Baptist Convention’s rightward drift in 2000. He now identifies with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a moderate group formed out of the SBC controversy in 1991.
In 1979 American Baptists presented Carter with the Dahlberg Peace Award, one of the denomination’s highest honors first presented to Martin Luther King.
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