User blogs

JOHN R. MOTT – NOBEL PEACE PRIZE LAUREATE

Nobel Prize: John Raleigh Mott (1865–1955) was granted the 1946 Nobel Peace Prize for his steadfast commitment to spreading the word of Christ, for his leading role in international missionary movements, and for his humanitarian efforts in time of war.

Nationality: American

Education: B.A. in history, political science, and philosophy, Cornell University, NY, 1888

Occupation: President of the World Alliance of Young Men’s Christian Associations; Chairman of the International Missionary Council

1. “The Scriptures clearly teach that if men are to be saved they must be saved through Christ. He alone can deliver them from the power of sin and its penalty. His death made salvation possible.

The Word of God sets forth the conditions of salvation. God has chosen to have these conditions made known through human instruments. Christians have a duty to preach Christ to every creature. The burning question for every Christian then is: Shall hundreds of millions of people now living, who need Christ and are capable of receiving help from Him, pass away without having even the opportunity to know Him?” (John R. Mott, as cited in Classics of Christian Missions, Francis DuBose – editor, Nashville, Tennessee, Broadman Press, 1979).

2. “If our Gospel is the truth, we are under obligation to propagate it. If it is not the truth we ought to forsake it. To attempt to occupy middle ground is not simply inconsistency but is the most dangerous form of hypocrisy.” (John R. Mott, The Pastor and Modern Missions, NY, Student Volunteer Movement, 1904).

3. “All men need Christ. We have Christ. We owe Christ to all men. To know our duty and to do it not is sin. Continuance in the sin of neglect necessarily weakens the life and arrests the growth. To fail to do our duty then with reference to the peculiar opportunity of our generation means the promotion of spiritual atrophy.” (Mott 1904).

4. “The pervading purpose of the Christian Church and of every other agency concerned with the spread of the Kingdom of God should be that of leading people to commit their lives to Christ as their Saviour and Lord. The most fruitful method of achieving this high end is leading individuals one by one to take Christ intelligently and with conviction as their Lord. The most solemn responsibility which rests upon each Christian, and also his highest privilege and deepest joy, is that of influencing people to accept, to represent, and to serve Jesus Christ.” (John R. Mott, The Larger Evangelism, NY, Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1944).

5. “Let us not forget that the evangelization of the world is not man’s but God’s enterprise. Jesus Christ is its leader. He, who is the same yesterday, and today, and forever, still abides with those who go forth to preach him where he has not been named. The Holy Spirit is as able to shake whole communities now as in the days of Peter and Paul. The word of God is still quick and powerful. Prayer can still remove mountains.” (Mott 1944).

6. “Our sense of obligation must be intensified when we ask ourselves the question, if we do not preach Christ where He has not been named, who will? We know their need; we know the only remedy; we have access to them; we are able to go.” (Mott, as cited in DuBose 1979).

7. “First of all, what is meant by the evangelization of the world in this generation? It means giving every person an adequate opportunity to know Jesus Christ as personal Saviour and Lord. It does not mean converting every person in the world in this generation. Our part as Christians consists in bringing the gospel to bear upon unsaved men; the Spirit of God alone is able to convert them.” (Mott 1944).

8. “It is of vital importance that we be sincere in our personal work for Christ. There is no class more keen than unbelievers to detect cant or hypocrisy. We should say only what we know and believe, what actually holds our own lives. It is reality behind words that gives them power. Here let me emphasize the simple truth that if a man is to lift a sinking man out of the quicksands, he himself must be on solid ground. If he is to point men to Christ, he too must know Christ as his own personal Saviour from the power of temptation, of closely clinging sin, and of fear.” (Mott 1944).

9. “I know whom I have believed, and nothing has taken place in these last fateful years to invalidate a single claim made by Jesus Christ. How true it still is that Jesus Christ and he only can make this world a safe place and flood it with good will.” (Mott 1944).

“It is our duty to evangelize the world because we owe all men the gospel. What a crime against mankind to keep a knowledge of the mission of Christ from two thirds of the human race! It is our duty to evangelize the world in this generation because of the missionary command of Christ.” (Mott 1944).

10. “The danger is greater now than ever before in the history of the Church that Christians yield to luxury, selfishness, slothfulness, and low ideals. Never so much as today has the Church needed great tasks to call out and exercise all her energies and to save her from paralyzing weakness.” (Mott 1904).

11. “If all men need the Gospel, if we owe the Gospel to all men, if Christ has commanded us to preach the Gospel to every creature, it is unquestionably our duty to give all people in our generation an opportunity to hear the Gospel. To know our duty and to not do it is sin [James 4:17]. Continuing in the sin of neglect and disobedience necessarily weakens the life and arrests the growth of the Church. Who can measure the loss of vitality and power that she has already suffered within our own day from her failure to do all in her power for the world’s evangelization.” (Mott, as cited in DuBose 1979).

12. “The Scriptures clearly teach that if men are to be saved they must be saved through Christ. The burning question then is, ‘Shall hundreds of millions of men now living who need Christ, and who are capable of receiving help from him, pass away without having even the opportunity to know him?’ A knowledge of our own hearts should be sufficient to make plain our duty. We know that Christ has been and is necessary for us. Would it not be presumptuous, therefore, for us to assume that the nations living in sin and wretchedness can do without him whom we so much need even in the most favored Christian lands?” (Mott 1944).

See also:

- Mott, John R., The Evangelization of the World in This Generation. New York, Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, 1900.

- Mott, John R., Liberating the Lay Forces of Christianity. London, Student Christian Movement Press, 1932.

- Mott, John R., The Present-Day Summons to the World Mission of Christianity. London, Student Christian Movement Press, 1932.

- Mott, John R., Addresses and Papers of John R. Mott. 6 vols. New York, Association Press, 1946-1947.

DAG HAMMARSKJOELD – NOBEL PEACE PRIZE LAUREATE

Nobel Prize: Dag Hammarskjoeld (1905–1961), Secretary-General of the United Nations, was posthumously awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize for his work toward peace in the world, especially in the Middle East and the new Republic of the Congo, Africa. He died on September 18, 1961, in a plane accident (under mysterious circumstances), while on a peace mission to the Congo.

Nationality: Swedish

Education: Ph.D. in political economy, University of Stockholm, Sweden, 1934

Occupation: Secretary-General of the United Nations (1953-61)

1. “I now recognize and endorse, unreservedly, those very beliefs which were once handed down to me.

From generations of soldiers and government officials on my father’s side I inherited a belief that no life was more satisfactory than one of selfless service to your country – or humanity. This service required a sacrifice of all personal interests, but likewise the courage to stand up unflinchingly for your convictions.

From scholars and clergymen on my mother’s side I inherited a belief that, in the very radical sense of the Gospels, all men were equals as children of God, and should be met and treated by us as our masters in God.

The two ideals which dominated my childhood world met me fully harmonized and adjusted to the demands of our world of today in the ethics of Albert Schweitzer, where the ideal of service is supported by and supports the basic attitude to man set forth in the Gospels. In his work I also found a key for modern man to the world of the Gospels.” (Dag Hammarskjoeld, Servant of Peace, New York, Harper & Row, 1962, 23-24; see also Van Dusen 1967).

2. One of Hammarskjoeld’s prayers, published in Markings (1964):

“Give me a pure heart that I may see Thee,

A humble heart that I may hear Thee,

A heart of love that I may serve Thee,

A heart of faith that I may abide in Thee.”

(Dag Hammarskjoeld, Markings, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, translation – W. H. Auden and Leif Sjoberg, 1964, 100).

Markings is Dag Hammarskjoeld’s diary, which was published posthumously in 1963 in Swedish. In a letter, found with the manuscript of Markings in Hammarskjoeld’s New York apartment (after his 1961 death in an air crash), Hammarskjoeld termed his diary “a sort of white book concerning my negotiations with myself – and with God.”

3. “Forgiveness is the answer to the child’s dream or a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is again made clean. The dream explains why we need to be forgiven, and why we must forgive. In the presence of God, nothing stands between Him and us – we are forgiven.” (Hammarskjoeld, Markings, Knopf, 1964, 124).

4. “The inner experience of God’s love is the deepest sense of joy and fulfilment a human being can have – nothing surpasses it. All other experiences of love, beautiful though they are, are like reflections or reminders of the real thing.” (Hammarskjoeld, Markings, 1964).

5. “Before Thee, Father,

In righteousness and humility,

With Thee, Brother,

In faith and courage,

In Thee, Spirit,

In stillness,

Thine, for Thy will is my destiny,

Dedicated, for my destiny is to be used and used up according to Thy will.”

(Hammarskjoeld, Markings, 1964).

6. Brian Urquhart (Hammarskjoeld’s biographer) wrote: “The springs of Hammarskjoeld’s sense of vocation ran deep. They were traditional, intellectual, and religious. His identification with Christian thought was not messianic, but rather in the old tradition of the imitation of Christ in sacrifice and in service to others. He was a member of that small and lonely band who throughout history have engaged at the same time in trying to deal with the hard world of political and social reality and in searching endlessly for a spiritual meaning which transcends that world. Hammarskjoeld’s religious faith was very personal, and non-ritual. He wished neither to impose it on others nor to have others interpret it to himself. Religion for him was a dialogue of his own with God, and faith was the foundation for duty, dedication, and service, qualities that he considered most essential in himself and most admirable in others.” (Brian Urquhart, Hammarskjoeld, NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1972, 23-24).

7. “Rejoice if God found a use for your efforts in His work. Rejoice if you feel that what you did was ‘necessary,’ but remember, even so, that you were simply the instrument by means of which He added one tiny grain to the Universe He created for His own purposes.” (Hammarskjoeld, Markings, 1964, 143).

8. “Your cravings as a human animal do not become a prayer just because it is God whom you ask to attend to them.” (Hammarskjoeld, Markings, 1964, 11).

9. “How can you expect to keep your powers of hearing when you never want to listen? That God should have time for you, you seem to take as much for granted as that you cannot have time for Him.” (Hammarskjoeld, Markings, 1964, 12).

10. “Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for.” (Hammarskjoeld, Markings, 1964, 72).

11. “To be free, to be able to stand up and leave everything behind – without looking back. To say Yes.

Yes to God, Yes to fate, Yes to yourself. This reality can wound the soul, but has the power to heal her.” (Hammarskjoeld, Markings, 1964).

12. “It is not sufficient to place yourself daily under God. What really matters is to be only under God.” (Hammarskjoeld, Markings, 1964, 110).

13. “It is our conception of death which decides our answers to all the questions that life puts to us.” (Hammarskjoeld, Markings, 1964, 160).

WOODROW WILSON – NOBEL PEACE PRIZE LAUREATE Nobel Prize: The twenty-eighth President of the United States, Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) received the 1919 Nobel Prize “for his sincere attempts at peace negotiations” and for his contribution to the peace at the end of the First World War. Wilson is the founder of the League of Nations.

Nationality: American

Education: Ph.D. in politics and history, Johns Hopkins University, 1886; he remains the only American President to have earned a Ph.D. degree

Occupation: U.S. President (1913-21); Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Economy at Princeton University; Professor at Bryn Mawr College, PA, and Wesleyan University, CT

1. “From the laws of the Old and New Testaments every civilized nation has taken the foundation of its laws. At no time can any nation be prosperous whose laws are not founded upon these eternal principles of right and wrong, of justice and injustice, of civil and religious liberty.

Above all, in these pages may be found the most perfect rule of life the mind can conceive. Dimly through the Old, and brilliantly through the New Testament, shines the principle of love to God as the foundation and cause of men’s duties to God, to each other, and to their own souls. One who forms his every-day life after the perfect model of Christ’s life will himself be a model which no man can afford to despise, besides thereby gaining for himself an assurance of everlasting life.” (Woodrow Wilson, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, 1966, Vol. 1, p. 185, Arthur S. Link - editor, Princeton University Press).

2. “Our civilization cannot survive materially unless it is redeemed spiritually. It can be saved only by becoming permeated with the Spirit of Christ and being made free and happy by the practices which spring out of that Spirit. Only thus can discontent be driven out and all the shadows lifted from the road ahead.” (Wilson, as cited in Collins 1988).

3. “When you have read the Bible, you will know that it is the Word of God, because you will have found it the key to your own heart, your own happiness, and your own duty.” (Wilson, as cited in Huling 2000).

4. “The radical error among modern Christians is neglect of the Word of God. We are too apt to seek for religious information and instruction from other sources. Christian people are too much in the habit of seeking for instruction or improvement from lesser streams of knowledge, in preference to going to the eternal fountain head which is ever at hand. This is a great mistake. Though a man read this precious volume continuously for a life time he cannot exhaust one-half of its treasures.” (Woodrow Wilson, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, 1966, Vol. 1, p. 185, Arthur S. Link - editor).

5. “The Bible is the one supreme source of revelation of the meaning of life, the nature of God and spiritual nature and need of men. It is the only guide of life which really leads the spirit in the way of peace and salvation.” (Wilson, as cited in Ankerberg and Weldon 1997).

6. “We are so slow to comprehend, that happiness lies, not in anything that you can get out of thinking about yourself, but always in being glad about others and living outside yourself in the free atmosphere of God’s big World.

In God’s gracious arrangement of things I have little time or chance to think about myself.” (Woodrow Wilson, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, 1977, Vol. 31, p. 4, Arthur S. Link - editor).

7. “There is no middle course, no neutrality. Each and every one must enlist either with the followers of Christ or those of Satan.” (Woodrow Wilson, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, 1966, Vol. 1, p. 181, Arthur S. Link - editor).

8. “I am sorry for the men who do not read the Bible every day. I wonder why they deprive themselves of the strength and of the pleasure.” (Wilson, as cited in Huling 2000).

9. “The Bible is not something to turn aside to; the Bible is not something to which to resort for religious instruction and comfort; the Bible is not something to associate merely with churches and sermons.

It stands right in the center, in the market place, of our life, and there bubbles with the water of life. It is, itself, the fountain; it is, itself, the inexhaustible fountain. Only those who have learned from it, and only those who have drunk of those waters, can be refreshed for the longer journey.” (Woodrow Wilson, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, 1977, Vol. 23, p. 499, Arthur S. Link - editor).

10. “The Bible is so commonly known and so universally spread through this Christian country that few people appreciate the treasure they see every day in their libraries. Let anyone turn over its pages carefully and scan its contents with a critical eye. It is a treasury of poetry, history, philosophy, laws and morals which will never be equalled.” (Woodrow Wilson, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, 1966, Vol. 1, p. 184, Arthur S. Link - editor).

11. “As a history the Bible is one of the most valuable of ancient records, though it gives and professes to give, little information as to the history of the period. Into these sacred pages the historian can dip without fear of finding anything but truth.

As a philosophical work this wonderful book is unsurpassed. In its teeming pages is developed a system of mental and moral philosophy than which none has ever been more simple and yet more profound, more plain, or more logical. No philosopher ancient or modern has ever been able to conceive of motives more powerful than are here set forth. Here is found the key to every man’s character, for which philosophers have so long and so vainly sought.” (Woodrow Wilson, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, 1966, Vol. 1, p. 185, Arthur S. Link - editor; see also the Wilmington North Carolina Presbyterian, Aug. 30, 1876).

12. Sigmund Freud and William C. Bullitt described Woodrow Wilson’s religious convictions in their psychological-biographical study Thomas Woodrow Wilson: 28th President of the United States:

“He never doubted the exact and literal truth of Presbyterianism. All his life he prayed on his knees morning and evening. Every day he read the Bible. He believed absolutely in the immortality of the soul and the efficacy of prayer.

‘I do not see how anyone can sustain himself in any enterprise in life without prayer,’ he once wrote. ‘It is the only spring at which he can renew his spirit and purify his motive. God is the source of strength to every man and only by prayer can he keep himself close to the Father of his spirit.’ In crises he felt himself ‘guided by an intelligent Power outside himself’.” (Freud and Bullitt 1967, 7-8).

THEODORE ROOSEVELT – NOBEL PEACE PRIZE LAUREATE

Nobel Prize: The twenty-sixth President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. (1858–1919) was awarded the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for mediating the end of the Russo-Japanese War and for his contribution to various peace treaties.

Nationality: American

Education: A.B., Harvard University, 1880

Occupation: U.S. President (1901-09), writer, and explorer

1. “Fear God and take your own part! Fear God, in the true sense of the word, means to love God, respect God, honor God; and all of this can only be done by loving our neighbor, treating him justly and mercifully, and in all ways endeavoring to protect him from injustice and cruelty, thus obeying, as far as our human frailty will permit, the great and immutable law of righteousness.” (Theodore Roosevelt, The Theodore Roosevelt Treasury, New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1953, 322).

2. “If there is any place on earth where earthly distinctions vanish it is in the church, in the presence of God. The nearer the people get to the heart of Christ, the nearer they get to each other, irrespective of earthly conditions.” (Theodore Roosevelt, The Free Citizen, New York, The Macmillan Company, 1956, 31).

3. “A churchless community, a community where men have abandoned and scoffed at or ignored their religious needs, is a community on the rapid down-grade.

On Sunday go to church. Yes – I know all the excuses. I know that one can worship the Creator and dedicate oneself to good living in a grove of trees, or by a running brook, or in one’s own house, just as well as in church. But I also know that as a matter of cold fact the average man does not thus worship or thus dedicate himself.

If he stays away from church he does not spend his time in good works or in lofty meditation. He looks over the colored supplement of the newspaper; he yawns; and he finally seeks relief from the mental vacuity of isolation by going where the combined mental vacuity of many partially relieves the mental vacuity of each particular individual.” (Roosevelt 1956, 26).

4. “I am engaged in one of the greatest moral conflicts of the age – that of colossal lawless corporations against the government. The oppression of lawless wealth, and the purchase of lawmakers by it, have wrecked most of the empires of the past and, if not resisted and defeated, will ruin our Republic. As the executive of this Nation, I am determined that no man or set of men shall defy the law of the land. The rich and powerful must obey the law as well as the poor and feeble – not any better nor any worse, but just the same.

After a week on perplexing problems and in heated contests, it does so rest my soul to come into the House of the Lord and worship, and to sing – and to mean it – the ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,’ and to know that He is my Father, and takes me up into His life and plans; and to commune personally with Christ. I am sure, I get a wisdom not my own, and a superhuman strength, for fighting the moral evils I am called to confront.” (Roosevelt 1956, 31-32).

5. “Fear God and take your own part! We fear God when we do justice to and demand justice for the men within our own borders. We are false to the teachings of righteousness if we do not do such justice and demand such justice. We must do it to the weak, and we must do it to the strong. We do not fear God if we show mean envy and hatred of those who are better off than we are; and still less do we fear God if we show a base arrogance toward and selfish lack of consideration for those who are less well off.” (Roosevelt 1953, 322).

6. “Christianity after all must largely be the attempt to realize that noble verse of Micah, ‘What more doth the Lord require of thee than to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God?’.

This verse has always been a favorite of mine, because it embodies the Gospel of Works, with the necessary antidote in the last few words to that hard spiritual arrogance which is brought about by mere reliance on the Gospel of Works.” (Roosevelt 1953, 322).

7. “I appeal for a study of the Bible on many different accounts, even aside from its ethical and moral teachings, even aside from the fact that all serious people, all men who think deeply, even among non-Christians, have come to agree that the life of Christ, as set forth in the four Gospels, represents an infinitely higher and purer morality than is preached in any other book of the world.

I make my appeal not only to professing Christians; I make it to every man who seeks after a high and useful life, to every man who seeks the inspiration of religion, or who endeavors to make his life conform to a high ethical standard.” (Roosevelt 1956, 28).

8. “The teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally – I do not mean figuratively, I mean literally – impossible for us to figure to ourselves what that life would be if these teachings were removed. We would lose almost all the standards by which we now judge both public and private morals; all the standards toward which we, with more or less resolution, strive to raise ourselves. Almost every man who has by his life-work added to the sum of human achievement of which the race is proud, of which our people are proud, has based his life-work largely upon the teachings of the Bible.” (Roosevelt 1956, 28).

9. “The church must fit itself for the practical betterment of mankind if it is to attract and retain the fealty of the men best worth holding and using. The church must be a living, breathing, vital force, or it is no real church.” (Roosevelt 1956, 29).

10. “The truths that were true at the foot of Mt. Sinai are true now. The truths that were true when the Golden Rule was promulgated are true now.

No man is a good citizen unless he so acts as to show that he actually uses the Ten Commandments, and translates the Golden Rule into his life conduct.” (Roosevelt 1956, 25).

See also Albert Bushnell Hart and Herbert Ronald Ferleger, Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia, New York: Roosevelt Memorial Association, 1941.

ADOLFO PEREZ ESQUIVEL – NOBEL PEACE PRIZE LAUREATE

Nobel Prize: Adolfo Perez Esquivel (born 1931) was awarded the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize for his struggle for democracy and human rights in Argentina. He was arrested in 1977 and held without charge for 14 months, during which time he was tortured.

Nationality: Argentinean

Education: Architect and sculptor, National University of La Plata, Argentina

Occupation: Professor of Architecture and Sculpture at the National Academy of Art in Buenos Aires (1968-1974); Secretary-General of the international organization “Peace and Justice Service” (1974 – present)

1. In his Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech (Les Prix Nobel 1980) Prof. Perez Esquivel said:

“I am convinced that the gospel power of nonviolence presents a choice that opens up for us a challenge of new and radical perspectives. It is an option which gives priority to the essential Christian value: the dignity of the human being; the sacred, transcendent and irrevocable dignity that belongs to the human being by reason of being a child of God and a brother or sister in Christ, and therefore, our own brother and sister.” (Perez Esquivel 1981).

2. To the question of Denver Catholic Register (February 2001) “You were imprisoned in 1977 for your opposition of the Argentinean government, what sustained you through that imprisonment and through the torture you endured?” Perez Esquivel replied:

“For me, prayer was very important. And the experience of beginning to understand faith from the experience of suffering and through an experience of pain. Oftentimes, that experience is so much an abstraction and not real, and so to begin to understand and live one’s faith through pain and through suffering and being at the margin. But it was a very difficult process.

It was a time of much questioning because those who were torturing me, for instance, also called themselves Christians. And all the crimes that they committed, they committed them in the name of the defense of so called ‘Western Christian civilization.’

Another experience that was very difficult for me, that took a long time for me to be able to deal with, was reflecting on Christ’s words as he is tried and put to the cross. He says, ‘Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.’ It took me a long time, and a lot of reflection, to be able to see that I think what Christ was saying there was, as he was saying to these people who tortured me and others, that they don’t understand that the man or woman they are torturing is their own sister, or their own brother.” (Perez Esquivel, as cited in Bledsoe 2001).

3. “For us liberty is that inalienable capacity that all humans alike have at their disposal. This is the capacity that permits the building of communion and participation which encourage human beings to relate fully with the world, with their brothers and sisters and with God.” (Perez Esquivel 1981, Nobel Lecture).

4. “For me it is essential to have the inner peace and serenity of prayer in order to listen to the silence of God, which speaks to us in our personal life and the history of our times, of the power of love. Because of this faith in Christ and humankind, we must apply our humble efforts to build a more just and humane world. I want to affirm emphatically: such a world is possible.” (Perez Esquivel 1981, Acceptance Speech).

5. Perez Esquivel closed his Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech (Les Prix Nobel 1980) with the words:

“Invoking the strength of Christ, our Lord, I would like to share with you, with my people, and with the world what He has taught us in the Sermon on the Mount:

Blessed are the poor in spirit

– theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn

– they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the gentle

– they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness

– they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful

– they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart

– they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers

– they shall be called children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake

– theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people abuse you and persecute you and speak all kinds of falsehoods against you for my sake.

Rejoice and be glad, for great will be your reward in heaven. In the same way they persecuted the prophets before you. [Matthew 5, 3-12].” (Perez Esquivel 1981).

NELSON MANDELA – NOBEL PEACE PRIZE LAUREATE

Nobel Prize: The President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela (born 1918) was granted the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize for his resistance against the ruling National Party’s apartheid policies and for his efforts to establish nonracial democracy in South Africa. Mandela was tried for high treason in December 1956, he was jailed for five years in November 1962, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment on June 12, 1964. Mandela was released from prison on February 11, 1990, after 27 years of imprisonment.

Nationality: South African

Education: Law Degree, University of Witwatersrand, 1942; University College of Fort Hare, South Africa

Occupation: President of South Africa, 1994-99 (elected in South Africa’s first all-race elections, 1994)

1. In his speech at the Zionist Christian Church Easter Conference (Moria, 3 April 1994) Nelson Mandela stated:

“We bow our heads in worship on this day and give thanks to the Almighty for the bounty He has bestowed upon us over the past year. We raise our voices in holy gladness to celebrate the victory of the risen Christ over the terrible forces of death.

Easter is a joyful festival! It is a celebration because it is indeed a festival of hope!

Easter marks the renewal of life! The triumph of the light of truth over the darkness of falsehood!

Easter is a festival of human solidarity, because it celebrates the fulfilment of the Good News!

The Good News borne by our risen Messiah who chose not one race, who chose not one country, who chose not one language, who chose not one tribe, who chose all of humankind!

Each Easter marks the rebirth of our faith. It marks the victory of our risen Saviour over the torture of the cross and the grave.

Our Messiah, who came to us in the form of a mortal man, but who by his suffering and crucifixion attained immortality.

Our Messiah, born like an outcast in a stable, and executed like criminal on the cross.

Our Messiah, whose life bears testimony to the truth that there is no shame in poverty: Those who should be ashamed are they who impoverish others.

Whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being persecuted: Those who should be ashamed are they who persecute others.

Whose life proclaims the truth that there is no shame in being conquered: Those who should be ashamed are they who conquer others.

Whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being dispossessed: Those who should be ashamed are they who dispossess others.

Whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being oppressed: Those who should be ashamed are they who oppress others.” (Mandela 1994).

2. “Why is it that in this day and age, human beings still butcher one another simply because they dared to belong to different religions, to speak different tongues, or belong to different races?

Are human beings inherently evil?

What infuses individuals with the ego and ambition to so clamour for power that genocide assumes the mantle of means that justify coveted ends?

These are difficult questions, which, if wrongly examined can lead one to lose faith in fellow human beings. And there is where we would go wrong.

Firstly, because to lose faith in fellow humans is, as the Archbishop would correctly point out, to lose faith in God and in the purpose of life itself.

Secondly, it is erroneous to attribute to the human character a universal trait it does not possess – that of being either inherently evil or inherently humane.

I would venture to say that there is something inherently good in all human beings, deriving from, among other things, the attribute of social consciousness that we all possess. And, yes, there is also something inherently bad in all of us, flesh and blood as we are, with the attendant desire to perpetuate and pamper the self.

From this premise arises the challenge to order our lives and mould our mores in such a way that the good in all of us takes precedence. In other words, we are not passive and hapless souls waiting for manna or the plague from on high. All of us have a role to play in shaping society.” (Mandela 1994b).

3. In another speech at the Zionist Christian Church Easter Conference (Moria, 20 April 1992) Nelson Mandela said:

“May Peace be with you!

We have joined you this Easter in an act of solidarity, and in an act of worship. We have come, like all the other pilgrims, to join in an act of renewal and rededication. The festival of Easter, which is so closely linked with the festival of the Passover, marks the rebirth of the resurrected Messiah,

who without arms,

without soldiers,

without police and covert special forces,

without hit squads or bands of vigilantes,

overcame the mightiest state during his time.

This great festival of rejoicing marks the victory of the forces of life over death, of hope over despair.

We pray with you for the blessings of peace! We pray with you for the blessings of love! We pray with you for the blessings of freedom!” (Mandela 1992; see also Mandela 2003, 332).

4. “Yes! We affirm it and we shall proclaim it from the mountaintops, that all people – be they black or white, be they brown or yellow, be they rich or poor, be they wise or fools, are created in the image of the Creator and are his children!

Those who dare to cast out from the human family people of a darker hue with their racism!

Those who exclude from the sight of God’s grace, people who profess another faith with their religious intolerance!

Those who wish to keep their fellow countrymen away from God’s bounty with forced removals!

Those who have driven away from the altar of God people whom He has chosen to make different, commit an ugly sin! The sin called APARTHEID.” (Mandela 1992; see also Mandela 2003, 332).

ALBERT SCHWEITZER – NOBEL PEACE PRIZE LAUREATE

Nobel Prize: Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) won the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in behalf of “the Brotherhood of Nations.” He was mission doctor in Africa for 52 years. Schweitzer used the prize money to modernize his hospital in Africa and to build a leper colony. Over the years he expanded the hospital to seventy buildings that served thousands of Africans. Schweitzer is an author of scholarly books on Philosophy and Theology.

Nationality: German; later French resident

Education: University of Strasbourg, France: Doctorate in Philosophy (1899); Doctorate in Theology (1901); Doctorate in Musicology (1905); Doctorate in Medicine with a specialization in Tropical Medicine and Surgery (1913)

Occupation: Physician, philosopher, theologian, musicologist and organist; Principal of Theological College, University of Strasbourg (1901-12); missionary surgeon and founder of Schweitzer Hospital, Gabon, West Africa (1913-1965)

1. In his sermon given at Lambarene in 1947 on the Sunday following the Feast of Saint John, Dr. Schweitzer said:

“If there should come a man who was king of all the world – Europe, America, Asia, Africa – he would not be the greatest of men. The true grandeur of a man is to understand the heart of God. John had spoken the words of God when he said that now is the time when the kingdom of God should come. He was greater than any of the prophets because his heart was filled with the spirit of God.

O God, we can never thank you enough for the great preacher of the kingdom of God whom you have sent, the man who gave us an example, the man who had strength to put into our hearts, the man who was the servant of God. May he make us servants of God. We thank you for all the riches that you have put within us. Give us to understand these riches. May we desire to have your strength within us. Give us then the will to be thy children. Amen!” (Schweitzer, as cited in The Africa of Albert Schweitzer, by Charles Joy and Melvin Arnold, chapter “The Feast of Saint John”, Boston, The Beacon Press, 1948).

2. In his book Reverence for Life Dr. Schweitzer wrote: “Those who thank God much are the truly wealthy. So our inner happiness depends not on what we experience but on the degree of our gratitude to God, whatever the experience. Your life is something opaque, not transparent, as long as you look at it in an ordinary human way. But if you hold it up against the light of God’s goodness, it shines and turns transparent, radiant and bright. And then you ask yourself in amazement: Is this really my own life I see before me?” (Albert Schweitzer, Reverence for Life, Ulrich Neuenschwander - editor, Harper & Row, 1969, 39-40).

3. In his autobiography Out of My Life and Thought Dr. Schweitzer wrote: “The essential element in Christianity as it was preached by Jesus and as it is comprehended by thought, is this, that it is only through love that we can attain to communion with God. All living knowledge of God rests upon this foundation: that we experience Him in our lives as Will-to-Love.” (Schweitzer 1933, 277).

4. “God’s love speaks to us in our hearts and tries to work through us in the world. We must listen to that voice; we must listen to it as a pure and distant melody that comes to us across the noise of the world’s doings...” (Schweitzer, as cited in Albert Schweitzer: The Man and His Mind by George Seaver, Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1947, 133).

5. “What Christianity needs is that it shall be filled to overflowing with the spirit of Jesus, and in the strength of that shall spiritualize itself into a living religion of inwardness and love, such as its destined purpose should make it.

Because I am devoted to Christianity in deep affection, I am trying to serve it with loyalty and sincerity.” (Schweitzer 1933, 278-279).

6. In his letter to the music critic Gustav von Lupke, Dr. Schweitzer explained his decision to found a hospital in Africa:

“For me the whole of religion is at stake. For me religion means to be human, plainly human in the sense in which Jesus was.

In the colonies things are pretty hopeless and comfortless. We – the Christian nations – send out there the mere dregs of our people; we think only of what we can get out of the natives, in short what is happening there is a mockery of humanity and Christianity.

If this wrong is in some measure to be atoned for, we must send out there men who will do good in the name of Jesus, not simply proselytising missionaries, but men who will help the distressed as they must be helped if the Sermon on the Mount and the words of Jesus are valid and right.

Now we sit here and study Theology, and then compete for the best ecclesiastical posts, write thick learned books in order to become Professors of Theology, and what is going on out there where the honour and the name of Jesus are at stake, does not concern us at all. And I am supposed to devote my life to making ever fresh critical discoveries, that I might become famous as a theologian, and go on training pastors who will also sit at home, and will not have the right to send them out to this vital work. I cannot do so.

For years I have turned these matters over in my mind, this way and that. At last it became clear to me that the meaning of my life does not consist in knowledge or art but simply in being human and doing some little thing in the spirit of Jesus – ‘what you have done to the least of these my brethren you have done to me.’ Just as the wind is driven to spend its force in the big empty spaces so must the men who know the laws of the spirit go where men are most needed.” (Schweitzer, as cited in Albert Schweitzer: The Story of His Life by Jean Pierhal, Philosophical Library Inc., NY, 1957, 59).

7. In Out of My Life and Thought Schweitzer wrote: “The true understanding of Jesus is the understanding of will acting on will. The true relation to Him is to be taken possession of by Him. Christian piety of any and every sort is valuable only so far as it means the surrender of our will to His.” (Schweitzer 1933, 71).

8. Albert Schweitzer wrote in his book A Place For Revelation: “And reason discovers the connecting link between love for God and love for man: love for all creatures, reverence for all being, a compassionate sharing of experiences with all of life, no matter how externally dissimilar to our own.” (Schweitzer 1988, 11).

9. “The importance of Jesus Christ to mankind does not lie in the rituals people have made out of his teaching, but in the example of his life. His love and compassion and his willingness to die for the conviction that his death would redeem all men from suffering and sin, these are the deeds that have been remembered throughout time.” (Schweitzer, as cited in Jilek-Aall 1990).

10. In Reverence for Life Schweitzer stated:

“To hope, to keep silent, and to work alone – that is what we must learn to do if we really want to labor in the true spirit.

But what exactly does it involve, this plowing? The plowman does not pull the plow. He does not push it. He only directs it. That is just how events move in our lives. We can do nothing but guide them straight in the direction which leads to our Lord Jesus Christ, striving toward him in all we do and experience. Strive toward him, and the furrow will plow itself.” (Schweitzer 1969, 47).

11. In his book Christianity and the Religions of the World Albert Schweitzer wrote: “For ten years, before I left for Africa, I prepared boys in the parish of St. Nicholas, in Strassburg, for confirmation. After the First World War some of them came to me and thanked me for having taught them so definitely that religion was not a formula for explaining everything. They said it had been that teaching that kept them from discarding Christianity, whereas so many others in the trenches discarded it, not being prepared to meet the inexplicable. When you preach, you must lead men out of the desire to know everything to the knowledge of the one thing that is needful, to the desire to be in God, and thus no more to conform to the world but to rise above all mysteries as those who are redeemed from the world.” (Schweitzer, as cited in Ratter 1950, 24).

In Out of My Life and Thought Dr. Schweitzer said: “To me preaching was a necessity of my being. I felt it as something wonderful that I was allowed to address a congregation every Sunday about the deepest questions of life.” (Schweitzer 1933, 36).

12. Albert Schweitzer wrote in his book On the Edge of the Primeval Forest and More from the Primeval Forest: “For the first time since I came to Africa my patients are housed as human beings should be. How I have suffered during these years from having to pen them together in stifling, dark rooms! Full of gratitude I look up to God who has allowed me to experience such a joy.” (Schweitzer 1948).

13. In a letter to his future wife Helene Bresslau, written in 1905, Albert Schweitzer stated:

“We found each other, and nothing on this earth could be more beautiful than that. To do, each in his sphere, or together if destiny wills it, to comprehend life and, together, walk the high peaks, to be indebted to each other and to give to each other. We are rich through each other!

Us, and our relationship I only understand correctly when I think of Him, our Lord. It is He who brought us together, not in any wrong or mystical way, but as two laborers whom He met in the morning on the street and whom He sent into His vineyards. We are on that road.” (Schweitzer, as cited in Albert Schweitzer: A Biography by James Brabazon, Syracuse University Press, NY, 2000).

KIM DAE-JUNG – NOBEL PEACE PRIZE LAUREATE

Nobel Prize: The President of South Korea, Kim Dae-jung (1924-2009) was awarded the 2000 Nobel Prize for his struggle for democracy and human rights in South Korea (and in East Asia in general), and for his efforts to ensure peace and reconciliation with North Korea in particular. Kim Dae-jung has been called the “Nelson Mandela of Asia”.

Nationality: South Korean

Education: Graduate certificate from Kyunghee University, Seoul; Ph.D. in Political Science from the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Moscow, 1992

Occupation: President of South Korea (1997-2003)

1. In his Nobel Lecture (Oslo, December 10, 2000; Les Prix Nobel 2000), Kim Dae-jung said:

“Allow me to say a few words on a personal note. Five times I faced near death at the hands of dictators, six years I spent in prison, and forty years I lived under house arrest or in exile and under constant surveillance. I could not have endured the hardship without the support of my people and the encouragement of fellow democrats around the world. The strength also came from deep personal beliefs.

I have lived, and continue to live, in the belief that God is always with me. I know this from experience. In August of 1973, while exiled in Japan, I was kidnapped from my hotel room in Tokyo by intelligence agents of the then military government of South Korea. The news of the incident startled the world. The agents took me to their boat at anchor along the seashore. They tied me up, blinded me, and stuffed my mouth. Just when they were about to throw me overboard, Jesus Christ appeared before me with such clarity. I clung to him and begged him to save me. At that very moment, an airplane came down from the sky to rescue me from the moment of death.” (Kim Dae-jung 2000).

2. In a letter to his son, written in prison (November 24, 1980) Kim Dae-jung wrote:

“Only the truly magnanimous and strong are capable of forgiving and loving. Let us persevere, then, praying always that God will help us to have the strength to love and forgive our enemies. Let us together, in this way, become the loving victors.” (Kim Dae-jung, Prison Writings, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1987, 6).

3. In his Philadelphia Liberty Medal Acceptance Speech (July 4, 1999), Kim Dae-jung said:

“I have had a life-long pilgrimage toward freedom. Along the journey, certain forces have sustained me.

The first is the Christ that I believe in. He gave his life upon the Holy Cross for the rights of the oppressed people of Israel. He taught us how to be free in spirit.

He also told us to follow him bearing the cross as he had, if we willed to be his disciples. The cross was my training toward freedom.

I still remember the experience in 1980. I had been sentenced to death. I was waiting for execution day in the army prison. My wife and children came to visit me. We all prayed to God in tears. We cried together.

But no one in my family told me to compromise with the military dictatorship. They all encouraged me to keep my faith in God, and in freedom.” (Kim Dae-jung 1999).

4. “The future of mankind belongs to liberty. When we side with liberty, we are with God who implanted the love of liberty in all of us. When we side with liberty, we enhance our own dignity.” (Kim Dae-jung 1999).

5. In 1980 Kim Dae-jung wrote: “Love of God does not mean we must love Him first. Rather, He loved us first, creating the world and leaving it in our care, sending His only son to us to spread the gospel, and, finally, opening the way for us to deliver ourselves from sin through the crucifixion of His innocent son, Jesus. Through Jesus’ resurrection, God gave us hope for eternal life. God is with you at this very moment. He loves you, and He creates the good for you from all the right and wrong in your life when you genuinely believe in and obey Him.” (From a letter to his son, written in prison; see Kim Dae-jung, Prison Writings, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987).

6. In a letter to his children (January 29, 1981, Prison Writings) Kim Dae-jung wrote: “Every time I think of the days you have all spent in anguish and suffering, particularly when I think about Hong-il, who is still being held in prison, pain and anguish fill my heart. My love for all of you is strong. I have determined to be a good father, the father of a blissful family. And yet I have caused you great pain and torment. In deep remorse, I can only pray to Jesus every day that your trials will in the end lead to some good.” (Kim Dae-jung 1987, 20).

7. In his Address at a Joint Meeting of the United States Congress (June 10, 1998, Washington, D.C.) the President Kim Dae-jung said:

“In 1973, I was kidnapped in Tokyo and taken onto a ship.

Bound and gagged, I was about to be thrown overboard.

But, as only someone who has brushed up to death’s door can know, I saw Jesus Christ near me.

I prayed for my life.

And I truly believe God saved me.” (Kim Dae-jung 1998b).

DESMOND TUTU – NOBEL PEACE PRIZE LAUREATE

Nobel Prize: The Professor of Theology, Desmond Tutu (born 1931) received the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the opposition to apartheid in South Africa.

Nationality: South African

Education: Master’s degree in Theology, King’s College, London, 1966

Occupation: Professor of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, USA (1999-present); General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches (1978); Anglican archbishop of Cape Town (1986)

1. In his Nobel Lecture (11 December 1984, Les Prix Nobel 1984) Desmond Tutu said:

“When will we learn that human beings are of infinite value because they have been created in the image of God, and that it is a blasphemy to treat them as if they were less than this and to do so ultimately recoils on those who do this? In dehumanizing others, they are themselves dehumanized. Perhaps oppression dehumanizes the oppressor as much as, if not more than, the oppressed.

God calls us to be fellow workers with Him, so that we can extend His Kingdom of shalom, of justice, of goodness, of compassion, of caring, of sharing, of laughter, joy and reconciliation, so that the kingdoms of this world will become the Kingdom of our God and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever. Amen.” (Tutu 1985, 246).

2. To the question, “If there is a God, why do so many suffer all their lives and why do so many people hate each other based on their color?” Desmond Tutu replied:

“In the end, it is a tremendous tribute to us that our God is not one who keeps intervening, jumping in. Because God has given us an incredible gift – the gift of being able to make choices.

He’s like a parent. The parents often see their child, who they dearly love, is going to make a wrong decision. The good parent is one who is going to allow you to make that decision, because that is how you’re going to learn how to grow.

It isn’t that God does nothing. It is that God respects us and says, ‘If you’re going to be persons and not robots, then you’re going to have to be free, you’re going to have the space to choose. The reality of your freedom is judged by the fact that I let you be free even to choose to reject Me, to choose the wrong.’ We have to live with the consequences of those choices. God still does not abandon us! Jesus Christ died ultimately as the prize of God’s caring for us, when we got ourselves into the mess we’re in.” (Tutu 1995).

3. “The God that I worship is the one revealed by Jesus. Jesus is a kind of window into the character of God. That is a God who is life-affirming, who opposes anything that undermines the integrity of anybody.” (Tutu 1995).

4. “The God that I worship is a strange God. Because it is God who is omnipotent, all-powerful, but he is also God who is weak. An extraordinary paradox: that it is God, a God of justice, who wants to see justice in the world. But because God has such a deep reverence for our freedoms all over the place, God will not intervene, like sending lightning bolts to dispatch of all despots. God waits for God’s partners: us.

God has a dream. God has a dream of a world that is different, a world in which you and I care for one another because we belong in one family. And I want to make an appeal on behalf of God. God says, ‘Can you help me realize my dream? My dream of a world that is more caring, a world that is more compassionate, a world that says people matter more than things. People matter more than profits. That is my dream,’ says God. ‘Will you please help me realize my dream, and I have nobody, except you’.” (Tutu 1998).

5. In his sermon delivered on September 11, 2002, at the Washington National Cathedral, Desmond Tutu said:

“Dear friends, in many ways, it is to say we, all of us, are vulnerable, fragile. For vulnerability is of the essence of creaturehood. Only God is ultimately invincible.

The Bible has wonderful images of God holding back the waters of chaos that seek to overwhelm. God holding back the desert that seeks to take over the arable land. For it is only because God restrains the forces of evil that you and I are able to be at all.

And the Bible has this incredible image of you, of I, of all of us, each one, held as something precious, fragile in the palms of God’s hands. And that you and I exist only because God forever is blowing God’s breath into our being. And we exist only because God keeps us in being. Otherwise, we would disintegrate into the nothingness, the oblivion, from which God’s fiat has brought us.” (Tutu 2002).

6. “The powers of darkness, of evil and of destruction had done their worst, they had killed the Lord of life himself. But that death was not the end. That death was the beginning of a glorious life, the resurrection life. That death was the death of death itself – for Jesus Christ lives for ever and ever.” (Desmond Tutu, The Rainbow People of God, New York, Image Books, 1996, 18).

7. “God created us for fellowship. God created us so that we should form the human family, existing together because we were made for one another. We are not made for an exclusive self-sufficiency but for interdependence.” (Tutu 1985, 246).

8. In his open letter to the Prime Minister of the Apartheid Government of South Africa, B. J. Vorster (May 6, 1976), Desmond Tutu wrote:

“I am writing to you as one human person to another human person, gloriously created in the image of the selfsame God, redeemed by the selfsame Son of God who for all our sakes died on the Cross and rose triumphant from the dead and reigns in glory now at the right hand of the Father; sanctified by the selfsame Holy Spirit who works inwardly in all of us to change our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. I am, therefore, writing to you, Sir, as one Christian to another, for through our common baptism we have been made members of and are united in the Body of our dear Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. This Jesus Christ, whatever we may have done, has broken down all that separates us irrelevantly – such as race, sex, culture, status, etc. In this Jesus Christ we are forever bound together as one redeemed humanity, black and white together.” (Desmond Tutu, The Rainbow People of God, NY, Image Books, 1996, 7).

9. Desmond Tutu’s favourite prayer is the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi:

“Lord, make me a channel of Thy peace

that where there is hatred, I may bring love,

that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness,

that where there is discord, I may bring harmony,

that where there is error, I may bring truth,

that where there is doubt, I may bring faith,

that where there is despair, I may bring hope,

that where there are shadows, I may bring light,

that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather

to comfort than to be comforted,

to understand than to be understood,

to love than to be loved.

For it is by self-forgetting that one finds,

it is by forgiving that one is forgiven,

it is by dying that one awakens to eternal life. Amen.”

(Desmond Tutu, The Rainbow People of God, New York, Image Books, 1996, 13; see also Les Prix Nobel 1979).

JIMMY CARTER – NOBEL PEACE PRIZE LAUREATE

Nobel Prize: The thirty-ninth President of the United States, James Earl Carter, Jr. (born 1924) won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”

Nationality: American Education: In 1946 he earned a B.S. degree from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland; he did graduate work in reactor technology and nuclear physics at Union College (Schenectady, New York).

Occupation: Carter served as President from January 20, 1977 to January 20, 1981. In 1982 Carter became Distinguished Professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

1. In his book Living Faith (1998) Jimmy Carter wrote:

“The Gospels recount how Jesus, having lived a perfect and blameless life, accepted a death of horrible suffering on the cross on our behalf, as an atonement for the sins we have committed. Accepting Christ as my savior means believing all these things and entering into a relationship with God through him, so that my past and future sins no longer alienate me from my Creator.

Putting our total faith in these concepts is what is meant by being ‘born again.’ It’s when there is an intimate melding of my life with that of Jesus: I become a brother with him, and God is our mutual parent. This frees me from the strings that previously limited my relationship with my Creator.” (Jimmy Carter, Living Faith, New York, Times Books/Random House, 1998, 20).

2. “Being born again is a new life, not of perfection but of striving, stretching, and searching – a life of intimacy with God through Holy Spirit. There must first be an emptying, and then a refilling. To the extent that we want to know, understand, and experience God, we can find all this in Jesus. It is a highly personal and subjective experience, possible only if we are searching for greater truths about ourselves and God.” (Carter 1998, 20-21).

3. “If one should go so far as to believe in the Big Bang theory, which is generally accepted now, I see that as completely compatible with God’s creation of the universe. So, I’m perfectly at ease with – you know, with the scriptures as I understand them and the scientific discoveries that have been proven.” (Carter 1999b).

4. “Jesus was the Messiah, the long-awaited savior, who came both to reveal God to us and to heal the division between God and humankind. As Jesus told his disciples, ‘If you have seen me, you have seen God’ (John 14:9).” (Carter 1998, 20).

5. In his book Sources of Strength: Meditations on Scripture for a Living Faith (Chapter 1 ‘What It Takes to Be a Christian’) Carter wrote:

“I want to share the Plan of Salvation with you.

1) God loves all of us.

2) All of us are sinners.

3) Sin separates us from God.

4) We cannot save ourselves. Only God can save us, through our faith.

5) Jesus came to remove the barrier of sin.

6) It is through our faith in Christ that we receive these blessings.

Some people may think this path to salvation is too simple and easy – that something else must be required for us to receive God’s mercy and everlasting life. After all, most of the achievements in life – education, a good family, a successful career – require hard work, persistence, and sacrifice. Yet God’s forgiveness and blessings are given to us freely, by pure grace.

The simple but profound fact is that our lives can be changed – beginning now – by professing our faith in Jesus Christ.” (Carter 1999a, ch. 1).

6. “I think the basic thrust of a scripture is ultimate and all-pervasively true. I believe, obviously, that Jesus is the son of God, that he was the promised Messiah. I believe that he was born of the Virgin Mary. Those tenets of my faith are very secure for me.” (Carter 1999b).

7. “One of the most interesting verses that I know in the Bible, for instance, is when the Romans ask Paul, St. Paul, what are the important things in life, what are the things that never change, and Paul said, interestingly, they’re the things that you cannot see.

What are the things that you can’t see that are important? I would say justice, truth, humility, service, compassion, love.” (Carter 1996).

8. “One of the tenets of my faith is that all of us are equal in the eyes of God. As the Bible said, there’s no distinction between male and female; there’s no distinction between master and slave; there’s no distinction between gentile and Jew; there’s no distinction between say white and African-American in the eyes of God. And those guiding lights prove adequate to me as a foundation for faith.” (Carter 1996).

9. To the question, “How would you describe the condition of American society right now?” President Carter replied:

“When I look at the standards of conduct that are acceptable and prevalent now, compared to when I was a child growing up during the Depression years, there’s a dramatic change – I think for the worst.

I never knew anyone in the community in which I lived who was divorced. I knew that people in Hollywood got divorced and violated the pledge in the eye – in the presence of God – to love, honor and cherish each other for eternity between a husband and wife. That concerns me. I think that there’s no doubt that the prevalence of almost unrestricted television and motion pictures and the field of violence and sexual promiscuity are dramatic changes.” (Carter 1999b).

10. “My faith comes from my belief as a Christian, my confidence that the life of Christ was perfect, that the things He taught and did are the perfect example for human being’s life.” (Carter 1996).

“There’s a mandate from Christ Himself for Christians to go into Judea and Samaria and through other nations to spread The Word of Christianity. And I try to do that, as a matter of fact.” (Carter 1999b).

11. “Religious faith has always been at the core of my existence.” (Carter 1998, 16).

“The Bible offers concrete guidance for overcoming our weaknesses and striving toward the transcendent life for which we were created.” (Carter 1999a).

12. In 1999, in an interview for PBS, Carter said:

“I think there is a probing right now, with the coming of a new millennium, among people, which I think is very advantageous to say, ‘Well, here’s the two thousandth birthday, in effect of Jesus Christ. What does that mean? Why have two billion people on earth accepted faith in Him as a basic commitment of life?’

‘Why was I created? What is my proper relationship to God?’ ‘What is my proper relationship to my fellow human beings?’ ‘How can I live a life that is a success – a success not measured by bank accounts or the beauty of one’s house or one’s name in the paper, but success as measured by the principles of God, that don’t change?’

I think that’s the kind of question that is now being pursued increasingly by people as the millennium approaches.” (Carter 1999b).

See also Carter’s books:

Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President, 1982, 1995; The Blood of Abraham, 1985, 1993; An Hour before Daylight: Memoirs of a Rural Boyhood, 2001; Christmas in Plains: Memories, 2001, etc.