Former U.S. President, Jimmy Carter, said that Jesus would approve of gay marriage on Sunday. Speaking on HuffPost Live, Carter explained that the Son of God would approve of such marriages on the grounds that “it doesn’t damage anyone else.” Carter is known for his self-professed deeply-held religious convictions, and has been a Sunday School teacher in his Baptist church for many years. Carter left the Southern Baptist Convention in the year 2000 after that year’s revision of the Baptist Faith and Message (BF&M) because he believed that it treated men and women unequally. The 2000 revision of the BF&M also notated that marriage was between one man and one woman (Chapter 18), something that Carter did not complain about at the time.
Carter said on Sunday:
I think Jesus would encourage any love affair if it was honest and sincere and was not damaging to anyone else and I don’t see that gay marriage damages anyone else.
Carter also said that Jesus would approve of some abortions:
I have a hard time believing that Jesus would approve abortions unless it was because of rape or incest or if the mother’s life was in danger. So I’ve had that struggle. I’ve had that struggle, but my oath of office was to obey the Constitution and the laws of this country as interpreted as the Supreme Court, so I went along with that.
You can watch the video below.
Jesus, of course, taught the “traditional” (and Biblical) view of marriage in Matthew 19:1-12. Jesus didn’t explicitly discuss homosexual marriage for the same reason Jesus didn’t explicitly discuss leprechauns or gangster rap; the notions did not exist in Jesus’ day. However, Jesus is in complete unity with the other members of the Triune Godhead, who inspired all of the Holy Scriptures including that which was given to Moses. In other words, by the inspiration of the Holy Scripture, Jesus does explicitly condemn homosexuality through both the Scriptures inspired in the Old Testament and by those inspired of the New Testament.
If Jimmy Carter believes that Jesus is the Christ of God and that God inspired the Scriptures, he should know that based upon the immutability of God, Jesus does condemn homosexuality. In other words, Carter must not believe in the inspiration of Scripture or perhaps he does not believe in the immutability of God, or perhaps he believes in neither of those doctrines. To neglect either doctrine is to place oneself well outside of Christian orthodoxy.
Likewise, it is altogether unclear why the prohibition against murder would change because the offender’s parent happened to be a racist or pervert. “Thou shalt not murder “seems to be a pretty clear concept.”
This isn’t, however, the first time that Carter has said such things. He made these claims in 2015 as well.
