This issue of A Public Witness covers a 1979 Sunday School lesson from President Jimmy Carter — with concerns eerily fitting for 2025 — taught at the First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, D.C.
Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, is best known as the church where former President Jimmy Carter taught Sunday School for decades. The church’s new pastor recently moved the U.S. and Christian flags out of the sanctuary.
In his eulogy, Biden said Carter’s faith overlapped with broadly held American ideals such as the idea that ‘we all are created equal in the image of God.’
While Trump fantasizes about retaking the waterway, this issue of A Public Witness digs into American colonialism and the roles Christian leaders and denominations played.
First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, D.C., Carter’s primary place of worship throughout his presidency, hosted an evening service that celebrated his life and played a recording from his final Sunday School lesson there.
Editor-in-chief Brian Kaylor reflects on what is missing in coverage of the religious faith of the late Jimmy Carter as news reports consider the life and legacy of the former president, humanitarian, and Sunday School teacher.
‘The son of man did not come to be served but to serve, and Jimmy Carter did his very best to live according to the calling of his Lord and Savior,’ said U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune.
No matter how many times one crammed into the modest sanctuary at Maranatha Baptist Church, there was always some wisdom to be gleaned from the measured, Bible-inspired words of Jimmy Carter.