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

Reverend Samuel Tolbert served with Jimmy Carter after his days as president, when he worked with religious leaders around the country on the New Baptist Covenant

Jimmy Carter was an evangelical. A liberal evangelical. A liberal evangelical in the age before the Christian Right supported a conservative revolution that swept Republican Ronald Reagan into power.

Mr. Carter said his spiritual rebirth was an “evolutionary thing” rather than “a flash of light or a sudden vision of God speaking.”

Jimmy Carter was celebrated Thursday for his personal humility and public service before, during and after his presidency during a funeral at Washington National Cathedral featuring the kind of pageantry the 39th U.

Carter was one of the most explicitly religious presidents, but his rise in politics came during a transformative era in American Christianity.

Jimmy Carter, a progressive Baptist, balanced faith with politics, advocating for church-state separation while evolving on social issues, shaping evangelical roles in U.S. public life.

Former President Jimmy Carter and wife Rosalynn visited a Habitat For Humanity community in Fairfield, Ala., Friday October 8, 2010 to help put the finishing touches on the home of Ted and Wanda Harville. The Carters worked on that house, visited others, and spoke to reporters. (File/AL.com/Joe Songer-The Birmingham News) bn bn

Carter was widely known as a man of faith, with his post-presidency defined by images of the Baptist Sunday School teacher building homes for low-income people.

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.’

Jimmy Carter was celebrated Thursday for his personal humility and public service before, during and after his presidency during a funeral at Washington National Cathedral featuring the kind of pagean