When Plains Baptist Church voted overwhelmingly in the 1950s to bar Blacks and “racial agitators” from membership, Jimmy Carter and a handful of his family members

Baptist leaders are remembering Jimmy Carter as an example of faithfulness, compassion and justice and advocate for religious liberty.

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.

Lesser known, and particularly relevant for American politics today, is our 39th president’s commitment to the Baptist value of religious liberty. The United States’ most religious president in recent memory was also the most committed to the separation of church and state.

Mr. Carter witnessed a shift from what had been a solidly Democratic South to one that Republicans, supported by white voters and particularly evangelicals, came to dominate.

Jimmy Carter, who died Dec. 29 at the age of 100, spent his life intertwined with America’s and the world’s enduring legacy of slavery.

Jimmy Carter officially announces his candidacy ... He once described feeling shocked when a “high official” in the Southern Baptist Convention told him in the Oval Office that “we are ...

Jimmy Carter professing his “born again” Christianity paved the way for Jerry Falwell and Ronald Reagan's style of religious politics.

Devoutness wasn't always an important feature in a presidential candidate. That all changed after Carter professed his “born again” Christianity.

That Carter had to say that at all illustrates how set apart the South was from the rest of the nation, even as late as the 1970s. That it never was again is a testament to what C

Truth is, the former president was part of two endangered groups — populist Southern Democrats and progressive Southern Baptists. In 1976, he fared well with evangelical voters, for a Democrat, but exit polls basically showed a toss-up.