Appearing on HuffPost Live, the 93-year-old former US president Jimmy Carter said Jesus would “approve” of Same-Sex Marriage (SSM) and so does he.
Mr Carter, who is known for his self-professed deeply held theological sentiments, is doing media runs to promote his new book titled A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety in which he discussed the role of his faith in his political life,
Carter pointed out that the Son of God would accept SSMs on the docks that “it doesn’t damage anyone else.”
He said, “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”.
The Democratic former peanut farmer has represented himself as a born-again Christian in the past noted on the programme that churches which do not approve of gay marriage should be required to perform wedding ceremonies for same-sex couples.
The former leader who served as president from 1977 to 1981, however, said he “had [a] struggle” in support a woman’s right to choose an abortion.
“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,” Mr Carter said.
However, he added, “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.”
According to Pulpit and Pen, the nonagenarian has been a Sunday School teacher in his Baptist church for many years. However, he 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.
In an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Carter says Southern Baptist leaders reading the Bible out of context led to the enactment of progressively “rigid” views.
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.
Jesus, of course, taught the “traditional” (and Biblical) view of marriage in Matthew 19:1-12. He didn’t explicitly discuss homosexual marriage for the same reason Jesus didn’t explicitly discuss other contemporary tabooed cultures; the notions did not exist in Jesus’ day(to be safe, there is not any written record of it in any of the four gospels).
However, Jesus is in complete unity with the other members of the Triune Godhead, who inspired all 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 by the New Testament.
You can watch the video below.
Hallelujah Magazine is committed to publishing reliable, trusted, quality and independent Christian journalism. Our journalism is free from commercial bias and is not influenced by wealthy people, politicians, clerics or shareholders. We value our readers’ feedback, suggestions and opinions. Have something to add to the story? Share it in the comments below.
