In Memoriam: President Jimmy Carter

The funeral of Jimmy Carter, the 39th President of the United States, has just concluded. Whatever one’s personal opinion of Carter as a president or a politician, as Christians we are bound to recall the words of the Apostle Paul: “there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God” (Rom. 13:1). So in honor of President Carter’s passing, I thought it fitting to recall a few of his words, spoken during the course of one of the most remarkable political speeches in recent American history: “A Crisis of Confidence,” more popularly known as his “malaise speech.”

Given on July 15, 1979, during the height of the second energy crisis of that decade, the speech was originally intended to lay out a set of legislative solutions to that crisis. Yet at the last minute, President Carter decided not to offer such a standard political response; instead, he decided to do something far different: to call the American people to repentance.

I will quote just a few sections of his speech (which you can watch or read for yourself in full should you so choose):

It’s clear that the true problems of our nation are much deeper — deeper than gasoline lines or energy shortages, deeper even than inflation or recession… all the legislation in the world can’t fix what’s wrong with America.

…just as we are losing our confidence in the future, we are also beginning to close the door on our past. In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose….

We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I’ve warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.

…there are no short-term solutions to our long-range problems. There is simply no way to avoid sacrifice.

The speech was bitterly criticized by politicians and pundits at the time, and according to the history books it even played a significant role in his landslide defeat one year later against President Ronald Reagan. Nevertheless, following the speech polls found that an overwhelming 77% of Americans agreed “that there is a moral and spiritual crisis, that is, a crisis of confidence, in the country today.” And despite its eventual moniker as the “malaise speech,” 42% said that they were “more confident in America” after having heard the speech, while only 5% said they were less confident.

The energy crisis of the 1970s is long over. But in my personal opinion, the “moral and spiritual crisis” facing America has only grown more pronounced since that time. In 1979, the American people listened when their president warned them of the poison of consumerism, and the peril of belief in “a mistaken idea of freedom.”

Are we willing to listen to him now?