My preacher father noticed a man of faith in Jimmy Carter. Let's remember him so. | Opinion

Former President Jimmy Carter is now in his final days in hospice care at his home in Plains, Georgia. Many will remember him for his accomplishments as president, such as the Camp David Accords, the peace agreement he personally negotiated between Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Others may remember him for his infamous “malaise speech,“ in which he seemed to acknowledge his failures as president, although he never used the word “malaise,” and was trying to say we should all work together to address our nation’s problems.

Others will remember the hostage crisis in Iran, and when the helicopters crashed in the desert in an ill-fated rescue attempt.

And even his detractors will remember his service as a former president, eradicating the guinea worm and bringing clean water to millions around the world. They will remember him as a Nobel Prize-winning voice for human rights. And they will remember him for building houses through his work in Habitat for Humanity.

But I will remember him for something my father noticed about him in January of 1977, shortly after he became President.

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A man of faith

My father was a Southern Baptist minister. He admired Jimmy Carter for many reasons, not the least of which was the fact that Carter was a fellow Southern Baptist.

I was a student in law school at the University of Tennessee in 1977, and like most college students in those pre-cellphone days, I made a phone call home, collect, to my father back In Memphis every Sunday night. I will never forget a phone conversation I had with my father on the Sunday night after Jimmy Carter became president. My father asked me, “Did you say you see our president on the news tonight?“

“No, I did not, “ I replied. “Did he make a speech?”

"No,” my preaching father responded. “He went to church.”

My father explained that on the TV news that evening, there was film footage of the new President and First Lady Rosalynn Carter , early that Sunday morning, getting in a limousine in front of the White House and heading to the First Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.

In seeing this on the news, my father had noticed the President was carrying his Bible, and in it was a pamphlet my father recognized as the Southern Baptist Sunday School book.

What my father noticed was the president of the United States doing exactly what my father had done that morning. He was headed to church with his Bible in hand for Sunday school and worship services. It made my father proud of his new President.

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A devout christian

President Carter and First Lady Roslyn continued to worship at the First Baptist Church in Washington during his four years as president. And then, after he lost the presidency to Ronald Reagan in 1980, the Carters returned to their home in Plains Georgia, not just their residential home but their church home, the Maranatha Baptist Church.

Back at the church in Plains, Jimmy Carter started teaching Sunday school again, something he had done almost every Sunday for years before he became first the Governor of Georgia and then the President of the United States.

At least once a month on Saturdays, he would help prepare the Maranatha Baptist Church for services on the following day, by cutting the grass on the lawn in front of the church, using his push lawn mower. And while he was doing that, Rosalynn Carter would be in the sanctuary cleaning the wooden pews with furniture polish.

In other words, Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter were faithful members of their Baptist church, worshipping and serving there , just as they had done all their lives.

As we say goodbye to Jimmy Carter, I am remembering what my father noticed on that winter day in 1977. For all his many accomplishments in life, his greatest accomplishment was that he was always a Baptist Christian who taught Sunday school, worshiped, and then after church went back out into his community and the world to help his brothers and sister by building homes, finding clean water, and working for justice and peace.

I am sure that many times throughout his life, he had opened his Bible and read the words in Micah 6:8. “What does the Lord require of us, but to do Justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.”

And Jimmy Carter strived to do exactly that.

Bill Haltom is a writer who lives in Memphis and Monteagle.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Remembering the faith my father noticed about Jimmy Carter