Monday Morning Music Ministry

1-13-25

What will bring this country together or, at least as symbols, bring our ex-presidents together? The easiest answer to that is funerals, whether of world leaders or late members of their own “club.”

So it was a rare sight and maybe a hopeful hopeful sign when five Chief Executives gathered in the National Cathedral for the funeral of Jimmy Carter. Even the “shade” of Gerald Ford was there as his son read a eulogy that Carter asked him to write in the eventuality that Ford would cross the Finish Line first.

Carter had become something of a non-person in his long retirement. From the first day of his “ex” status, he seldom was interviewed about events of the day; seldom visited the White House or Congressional offices; seldom, if ever, consulted on policy even by Democrats once on his team. This was partly due to his generally disastrous record over four eyes, and the enormity of his electoral shellacking. Despite the best intentions and limited effects of the Carter Center and his endless books, Carter’s frank assessments of Israel – as an Apartheid nation engaging in human rights crimes – turned him into a type of political leper in Big Media and in politics. “Unclean!!!”

Those matters were predictably glossed over in the state funeral. Eulogists spoke of his background as a peanut farmer (he actually managed a peanut warehouse) and as a “nuclear physicist” (he actually was a sailor on a nuclear – or as he pronounced it, “nucular” – submarine). But he was also lauded as a humanitarian, someone who toiled against poverty and disease, and who created many federal agencies and programs, appointing women and racial minorities to staff them and court vacancies.

Also, people remember Habitat For Humanity. Although the organization scarcely was named by eulogists at the funeral, the public saw, through the decades, Jimmy Carter hammering boards and carrying wood. It has been said because of these good works that Jimmy might have been the Best Ex-President America ever had.

Carter’s famous Sunday School classes were mentioned too. Indeed he frequently quoted the Bible in his public life, and cited Scripture as having informed his principles.

At the funeral there were hymns, an organ accompanied by an orchestral ensemble, and a choir. The National Cathedral arranges such services along High Episcopal lines, far from the Southern Baptist church he attended most of his life; and even more distant from the liberal Baptist church he moved to in his last years. But the eulogies, testimonies, remembrances, and anecdotes frequently referred to Carter’s faith.

However, the ultimate display of his character, and the impression he wished to make on the American public and on posterity was different; a betrayal of the manufactured persona. We are left with the evidence that his famous positions might have been, instead, pandering. Was his faith a faux faith? Was his ultimate commitment to Christ, or to Contemporary Culture?

The very last song that was performed at the funeral – and, remember, he choreographed and scripted the entire event, from members of his clan speaking, to former political rivals, to, yes, the music – was not a hymn of faith. Neither was it an emotional Gospel song. Nothing from the rural evangelical church or a Black spiritual that might have spoken to the masses; perhaps touched peoples’ souls; maybe even led someone to Christ.

Rather strangely, it was arranged that country-music singers Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood would sing a duet. Their presence was not out of place in itself, but they were asked to sing John Lennon’s “Imagine” –

Imagine there’s no heaven. It’s easy if you try. No hell below us; Above us, only sky.

Imagine there’s no countries. It isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for; And no religion, too….

Imagine no possessions. I wonder if you can. No need for greed or hunger; A brotherhood of man….

You may say I’m a dreamer, But I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, And the world will live as one.

These are the words that were the last to echo through the National Cathedral, and on millions of screens and radios. It was, in a very real sense, his last words – not any of his quotations that could have been read during the service – to his countrymen, to people around the world, to history. Imagine no heaven; imagine no religion; no countries (or borders?); nothing worth dying for? This Hymn to Hypocrisy was, in the end, Jimmy Carter’s anthem, his life’s theme song?

The church of Jesus Christ has suffered, and survived, uncountable attacks for 2000 years. Heresies, false doctrines, error, corruption, errancies, biased interpretations, secularism, liberal philosophies, relativism… Very little is new after 2000 years – least of all the bedrock Truth of the Gosple. Likewise the attempts, sincere or otherwise, to make Christian Doctrine conform to the World’s views.

God did not establish His commandments and covenants according to what might be popular with His children. Jesus did not share His messages and then test their acceptance according to the latest opinions, positive or negative, among His people. Christ has followers, not focus groups.

And, surely, Jesus did not respect Scripture but then sing for His people to “imagine” that there was no religion, or Heaven. Imagine… that Jesus did not think anything was worth dying for. He died for us, Jimmy; you too.

In many news stories and TV clips Jimmy was seen in overalls, “workin’ on a building.” That is the title of a rural Gospel song by the Carter Family (no relation), but I just wish, after four years of his presidency and after watching his good works (and I love H4H), and then sitting through the whole funeral service, that he had committed himself to all the lyrics:

I’m a working on building; I’m a working on building; I’m a working on building For my Lord, for my Lord.

It’s a Holy Ghost building; It’s a Holy Ghost building; It’s a Holy Ghost building For my Lord, for my Lord.

If I was a liar I tell you what I would do: I’d quit my lying and work on a building too.

If I was a preacher I tell you what I’d do: I’d keep on preaching and work on a building too.

Imagine that.

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This is a Sister Rosetta Tharpe song sung by my friend Linda Gail Lewis (Jerry Lee’s little sister):

Click: Strange Things Happening Every Day