- Jimmy Carter The Playboy Interview - Excerpt
- November 1976
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- Because I'm just human and I'm tempted and Christ set some almost impossible standards for us. The Bible says, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." Christ said, I tell you that anyone who looks on a woman with lust has in his heart already committed adultery. I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times.... This is something that God recognizes, that I will do and have done, and God forgives me for it. But that doesn't mean that I condemn someone who not only looks on a woman with lust but who leaves his wife and shacks up with somebody out of wedlock. Christ says, don't consider yourself better than someone else because one guy screws a whole bunch of women while the other guy is loyal to his wife. The guy who's loyal to his wife ought not to be condescending or proud because of the relative degree of sinfulness. (http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/history/faculty/TROYWEB/Courseweb/JimmyCarterThePlayboyInterview.htm)
Those unused to church attendance and Sunday school can have a very limited view regarding the frankness of Christians. This is principally because non-Christians can have a totally unrealistic notion about Christianity and consider it an addiction to weakness, dishonesty, and self-righteousness expressed habitually in hypocrisy. Such people simply have not attended a Sunday school class made in heaven in which joy and honesty commingle weekly to buttress spiritual strength without pandering to self-indulgence. Humility is often associated with truth, while pride with concealed vulnerabilities. Condescension, dishonesty and defensiveness are strongly correlated. A major objective of Christianity is to cultivate humility through sharing failures and vulnerabilities in a forthright manner. It is difficult to be full of grace and truth and concurrently deceitful, uptight, and defensive. Grace does not come cheap…it bears the price of truth and the responsibility of freedom.
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